


The Life Pursuit

by grassle



Series: The Belle and Sebastian Verse [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:44:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 49,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/pseuds/grassle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows on from <em>Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It</em>, the first Sherbastian fic, in which Sherlock and Sebastian got together again post-<em>TBB</em>. In this, they are drawn back to their Oxford college, the place where they met, to prevent a murder…</p><p>Don't get the arse about geographical, historical, medical, procedural or administrative inaccuracies. Or suspension points… Seriously. Don't. Cheers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

  


Excerpt from the Epilogue to **Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It**

  
Sherlock was still kissing him when Seb’s phone rang, the tone shrill in the very early-morning air. They looked at each other in surprise, and Seb shrugged, shifting them both until he could grab it from the floor. 

“Hi! What? Calm down. I can’t… What? Are you sure? And you’re okay?” he paused, listening, his eyes wide with amazement or worry and fixed on Sherlock. 

“Yes, I do know. Of course I was, anyway. It’s all planned. Look, don’t worry. I’ll get it sorted. Leave it with me. It will go ahead. I guarantee it.” 

He placed the phone on the edge of his desk and exhaled, staring at Sherlock. “Erm, mate.” 

“What.” 

“Something’s come up.” 

Sherlock waited, watched. You never knew with this maddening man. 

“How are you fixed for work?” 

“Why? What was that call?” 

“Just wondering if you fancied a little trip back to the old alma cliché?” 

“Coll? Why?” 

“Possible attempted murder. Which means there might have been two and we didn’t know.” 

“I’m guessing you don’t mean the food in Hall.” 

“No. Although… No. It’s the chair.” 

“What?” 

“Not this one, you dolt. The one they’re saying is cursed by the college ghost? Before it starts? The endowed professorship. The named chair. For heaven’s sake, Sherlock: the professorial chair?” 

“You’re endowing…” 

“Please. Don’t blame me. It’s a thing Pa started, the restricted investment, I suppose as a bribe, to get them to give me another go, myself having failed the penal collection – which wasn’t nearly as much fun as it doesn’t sound. I took it over a few years ago, well, Alli nagged me into it, to put a rocket under it. You know how slow they are. It’s taken ages, but the Chamberlyn-Wilkes William Professor of Applied Mathematics is about to be announced and inaugurated and –” 

Sherlock was trying not to laugh as he kissed Seb, because this name and this chair, managing to slyly involve all the people Seb loved most, was just so… 

“Sherlock! I’m trying to tell you about an attempted murder! That was Chris, you remember him, loved Radiohead, and about to be invested by default after one candidate died on holiday, presumed heart attack and drowning while swimming, and the other was run over and killed here in London. And now he says he thinks someone just tried to kill him. But he didn’t see anyone, so it must have been the bloody ghost tried to push him off the chapel tower.” 

“What a very Oxonian attempted murder.” Sherlock’s heart beat a little faster. 

“Umm. And very shades of _Scooby-Doo_. In which case, bags me Freddy. Literally. Or Daphne. Hmm. That ascot vs. the purple tights…  Oh, I can’t choose. Don’t make me. Well. I’ve got leave. I have to be there for the final details before the inauguration anyway, so…” 

“So what?” Sherlock wasn’t sure he was going to like what was coming. 

“Well, they’ll be expecting me and Alli. No; listen. I go, posing as a nice-but-dim-and-heartbroken divorcé to lure them into a false sense of security; you’re there to sort out your doctoral supervision and –” 

“Lots of staircase creeping?” They both grinned. “But seriously, Seb, we might need the police, in the shape of the dishiest DI in the Met in on this. Albeit unofficially. He’ll do it – he owes us so big for sorting out that drugs case.” Sherlock’s grin was bigger: he’d just caught up to the plural pronouns he was thinking in. 

“Indeed.” Seb’s smirk said he’d caught it too. And loved it. “But that’s perfect! He can be an American staying in the college – they’ve started renting out rooms, you know, ghastly business – researching into…genealogy! His family tree. On his mother’s side. Alli will have to be there for the ceremony anyway: the principal’s always had the hots for her. Remember how she got herself a set of rooms? And my aged parents love her so. Do you know Ma still gets her group to pray for us to get back together? Oh, and I rather think I’ll have a somewhat unconventional South African PA/chauffeur.” 

“Who I suppose you’re sending now, to look after Chris Paranoid Android.” Sherlock sighed and shook his head. 

“Sherlock. Someone’s trying to stop this professorship, maybe because of me. No one messes with my stuff. This is well out of order.” 

Sherlock took a look at Seb’s face. He could see Seb would be doing this, with or without him. 

“Sebastian Wilkes. Has anyone ever told you you give the best engagement presents?” he whispered, right into Seb’s ear. 

“Oh. That’s…good.” Seb’s grin was bright and loud and proud. 

“So. Back to the old Cliché Mater.” 

“Umm. Full Monty – entire weekend given over to thank-you drinks and dinner, then chapel service, inauguration and maiden lecture, concert and formal Hall. And possibly another attempt at murder.” 

“Just your typical Gory Night then. Well, I’m in. Of course. As if!”

**The Life Pursuit  
**

**Chapter One**

Sebastian was quite punctual: Sherlock had only been loitering smoking near the porters’ lodge for five minutes or so when he spied Seb’s car draw up and park in the last remaining spot in the Broad, right outside, and Seb leap out to dispose of the purloined RESERVED sign he’d requested Sherlock place on it.

“Darling!” he exclaimed loudly as he held open the passenger door. “Please! We did say we’d –”

“ _You_ said, _darling_ ,” sniped Alli as she stepped out, flinging her long shawl around her. “I simply don’t see why _I_ should slum it just so _you_ can indulge in some midlife-crisis-nostalgia thing. If you want a let’s-try-again-have-it-away trip, you’ll bloody have to do better than some squalid little room on a back staircase.”

“Oh, and you’d prefer the principal’s lodgings. Like old times, I suppose.”

“Suppose away, _darling_. Oh, little man there, are you here for me? Allegra Chamberlyn?”

Sherlock’s peeking around the archway’s stone post allowed him to see Alli taking delivery of a brand-new Regency-green bicycle with the requisite basket, hear Seb spluttering about her use of her maiden name, and notice the eavesdropping crowd. Both new arrivals’ voices, Alli’s particularly, carried in the still afternoon air.

“Where are you going?” cried Seb as Alli threw a leg over the saddle and stepped on to the pedals.

“I’m off to Rissa’s new boutique. I promised I’d pop in and buy something, start the ball rolling. Oh darling, come here…” She beckoned Seb over, and grinning like an idiot, he went, and she looped an arm around him. “I’ll need this,” she said, extracting a credit card from the wallet she’d plucked from his pocket. “Because I’ll be staying at the Randolph until you get a clue. Send my cases there. And settle up here? There’s a lamb.” And she patted his arse, actually patted it, before she sped off, ringing the bell and scattering the knot of people.

“Erm, well, I…” Seb’s staring after his ex was interrupted by the shop man’s polite cough. Sherlock ducked well inside the college archway, past the porters’ lodge and lurked behind a pillar at the quadrangle end of the arch, pretending to study the architecture. The Sebastian show would be moving his way. And within minutes, presumably having despatched Allegra’s cases by little man, Sebastian was lumbering through the entrance archway and stopping inside the small doorway of the lodge, where Sherlock, having crept nearer and now engaged on reading the notices on the wall opposite, could see him. Oh, shame; nothing on the _Daily Information_ news sheet about him.

“Erm, Will? Oh, you’re…”

“Young Will, yes sir.” The old man was sixty if he was a day, but younger than the porter in residence during their time as students here at the college. “Good afternoon.”

“So you…”

“Took over from Old Will, yes sir.” The old man grinned, blue eyes twinkling in his lined face. “I’m required to search you, Mr Wilkes, sir. It’s an amended statute, one which pertains to you and any descendants, should that be the case, I’m given to understand from the handover notes I got from Old Will. I’d be letting him down, God rest his soul, if I didn’t.”

“Search me? What for?” Seb backed away a step.

“You know. You remember.” Young Will was Stern Will.

“And you do realise I’m a major benefactor of this institution.”

“Oh yes, sir. Rushed off our feet we are for this weekend.” He approached, and Seb reluctantly let the old boy pat him down and slip thin, liver-spotted hands into his pockets. Sherlock couldn’t even peep at this point and leant against the wall-mounted sliding-glass case of notices for support as he silently shook with laughter.

“Do you want to go through my bags as well, old chap?”

“Hmm. Dunno, sir. There was nothing in the notes about that.”

There wouldn’t be, thought Sherlock. During his time there Seb didn’t routinely walk in and out with suitcases.

“Well, search this one. It’s for you. I presume you have similar tastes to your noble predecessor?”

“Oh, whisky. That’s kind of you, sir.”

“Malt whisky. _Single_ malt.” Seb sounded miffed. “A little welcome present. Now may I enter?”

Sherlock could imagine his face, saw him looking behind to see if anyone was observing, The college was open to the public. Visitors would be arriving for the two-hour slot in which they could see the outside, some of the building and some of the gardens. Not the best bits. Like small countries and their exports, colleges kept the best back for the locals.

“Just the matter of your battels bill to settle first, sir.”

“What?”

“This bill. In your name. Unpaid. For a tab run up. JCR café and bar. Accrued interest over the years it has as well, sir.”

“Hang on. If I had an outstanding bill, how could I have graduated?”

“Sure you did, sir?”

“Yes! I think. What?” Either Seb was baffled, or his upper-class-dazed-and-confused-twit act was good. Sherlock straightened up. He thought he remembered something about the tab… He heard a murmur of new voices and Old Will’s, “Of course, ladies.” Then came the rattling of his charity box. He’d obviously posed for a picture as some visitors entered. “Enjoy your visit. The choir’s in good voice today.”

The two tourists looked curiously at Sherlock slipping to the end of the entrance area and hiding behind a pillar as they walked into the first quad. He looked inquiringly at them in turn. The college had never been heavily visited, wasn’t one of the biggies, had no famous fountain or sculpture, yet there seemed a fair amount of people about, snapping pics and filming as they walked off somewhere. Maybe tourists left no immemorial stone, nook or cranny unturned these days.

“Now, I didn’t say it was _your_ bill, sir. But it’s in your name.”

Woah. Hurled headlong down Memory Lane, Sherlock heard the rustling of papers, then Seb’s, “Cheque do?”

“With a banker’s card, yes, sir.”

“I _run_ a bloody bank! Oh. Sorry.”

Young Will had evidently pointed to his NO SWEARING sign. There came the rattle of coins being dropped into his swear box. “Thank you, sir. And here’s your receipt from the bursar.”

“Thank you, Will. But I still don’t see…”

“Please sign here to say you’ll abide by the rules, sir. Here’s your keys, and please memorise this electronic code to the Oblique Gate should you wish access after midnight, or you’ll be climbing in over the wall. Might not find it as easy as you used to. And the CCTV cameras will add some more snaps to the album.”

“Oh I say. That’s…”

“And here’s your pigeon post, sir, and your copy of college rules and regulations.”

“And is my scout about? No? Well, may I leave this for him or her. With my compliments. Thanks awfully. Oh, and I’m not officially here, not quite yet.”

“I won’t be calling the principal to announce your arrival, sir. Got too much to do. If he should ask, however, I can’t lie. And as for the bill, why not take it up with that gentleman just round there, sir. I expect he could provide an explanation.”

“What?” Then Seb rounded the pillar, saw him, and stopped dead, filling his eyes with the sight. “Well well well. Sherlock Bones!”

“ _Holmes_ ,” said Sherlock on a scowl.

“Umm. Nickname. Remember me?”

“Wanker Wilkes.” He curled his lip into a thin smile.

“ _Posh_ , actually, was my nick.”

“I wasn’t referring to your nickname. And I think you’ll find I’m right.”

“So nothing’s changed then? Let’s shake on it, dude.” And so they shook hands, clasping tightly and Seb stroking a finger over Sherlock’s palm as the years rolled back. It was hard to believe they’d said good-bye only a few days ago.

“I know why you’re here. The place is abuzz. Everyone on their best behaviour to greet you and your lovely wife who are supposed to be arriving tomorrow, I believe.” Sherlock swept out an arm, indicating the quadrangle ahead of them and the buildings around.

“Ah. That’s… Well. Do you also know I’m back on the old staircase? The old Oblique?”

“Well, I was just going out, but I suppose I could help you with your bags?”

“Wouldn’t want you to go out of your way, Holmes.”

“Please. Call me Sherlock, Wanker. I’m back on the old staircase too.”

“I could tell.” Seb made a sniffing gesture. “Some things can never change, it seems. In that case, thanks. If you’d…”

Sherlock took up a bag, but they both stopped as a tall, silver-haired, brown-eyed forty-something man passed them. They listened to him speaking to the porter in heavily accented English. But not American English. Seb slid a puzzled gaze to Sherlock.

“Monsieur Gregóire Gilbert Lestrade of the Direction Régionale de Police Judiciaire or the 36, de Paris,” commented Sherlock. Out of the side of his mouth he hissed, “I’ll explain later.”

“Please dispose of your cigarette, sir.” Sherlock jumped as Young Will’s voice sounded out. The sod could certainly pop up. “Appropriately.” He coughed as he indicated the metal box full of sand. “Do I have to remind you gentlemen there’s no erm, smoking of _any_ kind in any college building except for the designated areas?”

“Thank you,” they said together and shot off while they could.

“Not changed at all,” Seb commented as they crossed the Old Quad, with the most ancient buildings.

“Wouldn’t expect it to. Aren’t you staying there?” Sherlock indicated the principal’s lodgings next to the admin office at the end of the square.

“Oh no. I want the full experience. And not _that_ one.”

“Shame. You won’t have access to his garden. One of the best in Oxford, I believe.” He caught the grin Seb couldn’t hide. Of course they knew exactly what that private garden _and_ the locked Fellows’ Garden looked like.

“One change: there’s a new telescope on the chapel tower roof.” There was no one about so Seb risked looking at him as he spoke. Properly. “With a plaque.”

“And a new commemorative bench. Under…that tree in the Far Quad.” Sherlock’s heart had squeezed to a stop before starting again when he’d seen the hardwood oak bench with brass plaque _there_ and he’d rushed up to the roof to confirm a suspicion. “Did you sponsor or provide something on every place we…”

“Pretty much. What can I say. I grew sentimental over the years.”

“Got maudlin drunk from time to time over the years, more like.”

“That too.”

“Sebastian Wilkes.” Sherlock couldn’t wait any longer and nudged Seb to duck under the huge ancient weeping willow in the Far Quad. It was a lot bigger and thicker than before. “It’s just as well we finally got together. Think of the state of your liver. Not to mention your finances, with all that benefacting. It can’t come cheap.”

“Don’t care. Not now.” And Sebastian’s weight pinned him to the trunk as he kissed him. He grabbed Sherlock’s arms and held them high, trapped them against the bark of the trunk for a moment, making Sherlock gasp and struggle, before he pulled back and regarded Sherlock in the ethereal green and brown light. When he spoke, his murmur was soft against the whisper of the leaves. “Hullo again, Sherlock Holmes. I’m glad we’re back. Together, I mean.”

“Oh what. Are you going soft on me?”

Seb pressed against him again, just for a second’s touch. “No. To the point where I’ll have difficulty walking no. But yet we must walk on. I don’t want to be caught by any fellows or the prince before we’ve caught up.”

“That the new euphemism? Fancy a spot of…catching up?” Sherlock grinned and made his cautious way free of the fronds of cover, signalling to Seb when to exit. He pulled a strand of willow from Seb’s shirt.

“Hands off. You do to me what no amount of frisking from Wills old or young ever has. Amazing. And I’m not saying we can’t christen the bench later,” Seb muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“You don’t imagine we’d be the first? It must have been there at least three years.”

“Filthy student beasts!” They’d reached the other willow tree, the one Seb had always felt sorry for. It had also grown bigger of course, and now had a bench. Seb stopped to look at it. “I haven’t even seen it yet. It looks okay.” The plaque just bore the initials B&S and a date. The date of the day on which they’d…

“Now I’m too nervous to check out the Gents in the Brewer’s Droop,” murmured Sherlock as a jolt of memory shook him.

“I’m not.” Seb rubbed his hands together. “But I’ll settle for a quick one in my room in the meantime. Yes; pun intended. D’uh. Come on.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

They left the Far Quad and turned the tiny corner – no smooth golden-stone archway with hanging tendrils of vines or ivy to duck under here – to the very back of the college: Oblique Yard, a striped lawn, however, despite its name.

“Oh. I rather liked the gravel-and builders’-sand surface that was here.” Seb paused, taken aback. “Gave it that postmodern afterthought/under construction feel. Made grown parents weep. When they found it, here at world’s end, housing the sheds and storage rooms.”

“They’re even supposed to be tarting the staircase up. There’s talk in the JCR newsletter of bringing it into line with the others and…giving it a number,” confided Sherlock.

“No! Then where will they put all the misfits, mavericks and people who got a place at the last minute? Don’t tell me the yard will achieve full quad status! Still, that new lawn effort is just screaming out for a bench…”

“And more grass for you. To walk on, I mean. Not here, with it never being that forbidden, but I remember you always tried to do that at other colleges.” Sherlock was recalling the rahs’ stupid game of getting pictures of themselves lying full-length on all the forbidden lawns of the university, racing to complete a montage poster.

“Oh. This hasn’t changed.” Seb studied the cavernous arch of the staircase’s entry way – the huge wooden door set to the right was shoved back against the wall as usual – and the stone floor and iron banisters which gave Oblique its unique under-a-pier or in-an-undersea-cave feel.

“How can it smell of the sea, so far from the coast?” Sherlock, and many others, had always wondered.

“It smells of forget,” corrected Seb.

“And your poetry was never published.”

The old wooden nameplate frames were still there. Seb pointed to the familiar wooden boards slotted in, their names painted on in gold. _Chamberlyn_ had been joined alongside _Wilkes_ instead of being above it in the row on the left of the door. “Yes, well. _Holmes_. _Lestrade_. Oh. Don’t know these…”

“Paying guest and only a couple of real students. It’s more an overspill annex now.”

“And no Chris?”

“Oh, he graduated to a proper set on a real staircase in an actual quad with being a professorial fellow.”

Seb heaved in a huge lungful of the inside as he went in. “Have we got time for me to sniff around? Literally?” Without waiting for a reply he knocked softly on the door on the left still marked _OLD LAB. NOT IN USE_ , then opened it to breathe in the reading room. Well, it couldn’t really be called a reading room and certainly not a library; rather a home for old or donated or abandoned books over the ages. The bouquet was pervasive.

“Lord. How long does it take before Obliquers reek of that?” The long, poorly lit room with its tables in between free-standing bookshelves was empty, so Seb went in.

“Half a day. But you won’t notice it soon. Did anyone ever work out what it was?”

“I thought I did once. Old books on old shelves in old libraries of course, but also old mildewed deck chairs in old damp summerhouses, old camphored dressing-up boxes in old abandoned attics, old cleaning products in old tins…”

“And still your poetry was never published. I think the chemical smell is the ghost of when it was the shared lab. What are you looking for?”

“This.” This was the signing-out ledger on the desk at the front, but not the current one chained to the desk: an older one chained to the inside of the desk drawer. “Look.”

“Oh. So not only did our august principal sign out _Tits And Bums Vol III_ one fine day and return it with a comment about half of page 47 being missing, which spoilt his enjoyment, he has writing similar to yours.” Sherlock grinned, then burst into a fit of giggles. “It’s the fact it’s Vol III that’s so funny,” he wheezed, before sneezing in the ancient dust.

“Roman numerals. Legitimise a multitude of clichés.” Seb tapped his nose and sneezed too. Sherlock pulled him out, pointing to the elaborately penned _silence_ and _think of others_ notices high on the walls. No other staircase had a Quiet Study Room.

“That’s supposed to be the quietest spot in all of Oxford,” Sherlock remarked.

“I’ve always loved those boasting Oxford superlatives. How nothing exists in its own right, but it’s the fastest-flushing toilet, the greenest blade of grass in the whole of Oxford, and so on,” Seb replied.

“And this is the staircase most resembling a medieval donjon or keep.” Sherlock nodded at the twists of narrow spiral stone stairs and the iron railings used as bannisters and on the window recesses, in lieu of glass. “Oh, come on out of the music room and wreck room! Nothing’s changed. Same old out-of-tune piano in one and less balls than ever on the snooker and billiards tables, plus an even more cracked ping pong ball…”

“Different litter blown in, these days,” Seb pointed out as they left the entrance and started to climb the flights of steps. “God. Are these steeper or longer or something now?” He paused on each floor as they reached it, pretending to look at the view from each window, the same view of the same lawn, as he sucked in breath. “And I’m right at the top?”

“In the Gods. Yes; Allegra was on that floor. Number 11. Up one more. Come on.”

They made it. Movement was heard a flight below, and Seb said loudly, “Thanks for helping me with my luggage. May I offer you a cup of tea in exchange?”

“How kind.” Sherlock grinned, more so at the awe on Seb’s face at seeing the rooms.

“Wow. It’s civilised at the top. These are even better than Alli’s set was. She only had the length of the left corridor! This is just the living room, and they go along the top and down the right side. Look –window seat with view of decent gardens of decenter college next door, and …”

“Sebastian, do you have to sound like some college version of _Cribs_?”

“More like _House Swap_ ; I think some tutor was turfed out for me. And left me some very complimentary minis in the minifridge. Look: his ‘n’ his gins. Romantic.”

“If I’m quick enough to get it before you.”

Seb grinned at the hit. “Well. Fill me in.”

“Smooth talker.” Sherlock took off his jacket. “You don’t even know where the bedroom is yet.”

“No need. Come here.”

And Sherlock was grabbed by the hips and pulled down onto the sofa with an _ummphh_ and thoroughly ravished, a grab-bag of mixed, scattered kisses which turned into Seb’s lips against his, then his tongue gently probing, testing almost, certainly not playing and not yet demanding.

“It’s been hell without you,” Seb murmured when he’d had his fill. For the time being.

“All three days of it?”

“Every minute.”

“Even with the erm, video link we tried?”

“We agreed never to mention that again.”

Sherlock’s wry grin found a mirrored sardonic twist on Seb’s lips. The attempt had been…unsuccessful.

“Oh, this was stupid. I’ve only just got you back and I agree to let you go? I’m fucking dumb.”

“And back with your ex.” Sherlock couldn’t resist twisting it a little. He hadn’t liked the separation either.

“Please.” Seb pulled Sherlock’s legs across his lap to get Sherlock nearer. He put his hands on the back of Sherlock’s head to bring him as close as possible and whisper against his lips, “This might not have been one of my better ideas.”

“So we’ll solve the case as soon as possible and get back…” _To normal? Home?_

“I don’t like this lying, living a lie. Living without you.”

Seb had never cared what anyone thought, Sherlock knew. “It’s a disguise. Not hypocrisy, to please the establishment. This is what it’s like being undercover.”

“Now you’re talking.” And there was the Seb grin-and-grab as he kissed Sherlock again, this time more demanding, his tongue licking deep and long before flicking alongside Sherlock’s, inviting his participation. He ended on a weak smile against the seam of Sherlock’s lips. “Although, if the wrinklies should hand over, say the country cottage or the Portofino villa in their happiness at seeing me back with Alli, I wouldn’t say no. Would you?”

“Yes. And oh. That bill. I can explain. I’ll pay you back, obviously.”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Oh yes. I keep forgetting you’re so rich. _Stinking_ rich, isn’t it?”

“Hey! _Helicopter_ rich, thank you.” Seb glared, then sniggered. “Plenty more where that came from. You’ll be kept in the style to which I’d like you to become accustomed. I did tell you my bonus, didn’t I?”

“A few times, yes. Are you really getting it tattooed on your pecs?”

“I was drunk when I said that. And anything else I might have promised. But I might. Get a tatt. Why not. All the cool City bankers are getting ink done.” He nodded, pursed-lipped, and made a would-be gang sign.

It was Sherlock’s turn to laugh, despite all the weight of the case, a case that wasn’t a case, two deaths the college administration were playing down and an attempted murder they didn’t know about.

“You’re beyond gorgeous. You know that?” Seb’s tone was casual, but the look in his eyes was anything but as he gazed at Sherlock. “I don’t think you laugh with anyone else but me, do you. And you know seeing you, here, like this makes me to rip that still-ridiculously-tight shirt from you and…do things. To you. With you.”

“That’s…nice?”

“And you’re doing it on purpose because we have to get on. Crimes to solve. And don’t you want to set out in pursuit of the full nostalgia experience? Avoid the prince? I’m due for dinner with him tomorrow, him and the board, and it’ll be me doing both parts, one in a low-cut dress, if I can’t persuade Alli to rock up. But you, you’re so… Can I just feel you up a bit then you tell me what you’ve found out so far?”

“Well, not too much. I won’t go all the way. I’m holding out for a new Breitling –” Sherlock shut up, dropped the jokes as with a murmured, “ _Calculating Bimbo_ ,” Seb pushed him flat on the sofa and squashed in alongside him for a quick but thorough grope, pressing hard into him as he lay stretched out, running his fingers into Sherlock’s hair and applying just the right amount of pull. It left them both aching and breathless.

“ _God_ , Belle.” Seb’s invocation was far from religious as he rolled off and paced to the wide window seat. “Again, not such a good idea. I can’t focus now.”

“Not much to focus on.” Sherlock cleared his throat, swung his legs to the floor, and made a grab for Seb’s laptop. By the time he’d booted up and accessed the file on his pen drive, Seb was back by his side, dropping a soft kiss on his ear as he bent to study the screen.

“So this old geezer from coll could’ve died from natural causes? He looked about a hundred. What did he want to go to Cancún for?”

“And people do have traffic mishaps in big cities.” Sherlock clicked to the second picture and information. “So that prof from Imperial, in the running – might have been an accident. But as with any situation, it pays to see who benefits.”

“But that’d be Chris!”

They paused to consider the thin, concave-chested and concave-stomached man, his orangey, strawlike hair with its life-of-its-own cowlick, his small round eyes behind his small round glasses, his small round mouth usually open in thought or puzzlement, the sweet, polite young man with his residual Potteries accent, beloved by mothers everywhere. Seb was the first to laugh, and Sherlock not long to join in the chortle.

“Maybe he imagined the attempt on his life. I mean – saying it must have been the college ghost?”

“Possible. Nerves, and so on. Still, no harm keeping an eye on him.”

“Talking of, come on. Let’s pay Paranoid Android a visit.”


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

 

“Dunno how I used to manage all the up, down, across and more up again living in college entailed,” Seb remarked. “Especially stuck away here at the back of beyond. It’s miles to anywhere.”  
  
“One good thing about being ‘backs to the wall’, as it were, is no one uses this staircase as a cut-through.”  
  
“True. Nowhere to go, after us.” Seb made a detour to peer through the gate into the Fellows’ Garden and pointed. “Blimey. Is that still the same tortoise?” 

“Looks the same. Huge, misshapen…” 

“William!” Seb coaxed. 

“Turns its back the same,” said Sherlock. “According to the newsletter, we’re in good form for this year’s race at the fair.” They caught each other’s eye and turned away to hide their sniggers. 

“Oh yes. Monsieur Lestrade’s Holiday. Tell me about it,” said Seb, making Sherlock frown, trying to puzzle out the connection. 

“He couldn’t really be American. He couldn’t do the accent.” He shuddered, remembering Lestrade’s drawled, “Howdy, pardner! Ain’t seen you in years!” 

“Try it more modern. Like those TV shows you and John watch,” Sherlock had suggested. 

“Like, I could, like, todally do that, yeah, dude! Hey man, what’s the happs? What’s hangin’?” 

“You’re not fifteen and a girl!” Sherlock had cried. 

“Well what do you expect? I’m not even half American, like your fancy banker bloke. I’m half French!” 

“What?” 

“Why do you think I’ve got French names, genius?” 

“Have you?” 

“Oh for God’s sake! How long have you known me?” 

“Thought you were French too, Sherlock? Don’t you recognise each other, like Fradar? French radar?” Alli had added. 

“What.” Lestrade’s turn for amazement. 

“I’m only a bit. Not like that!” 

And so Monsieur Lestrade of the Paris _Police Judiciaire_ had arranged himself a room and spoken to everyone who’d listen about his family tree  research. And being on the spot meant he could patrol at night and keep an eye on Chris. “But didn’t Alli mention that, during the journey here?” Sherlock wondered. 

“Mate! She wouldn’t discuss her new boyfriend with her ex! She’s got class. But I guess that’s why we’re not pretending to be married or remarried or shack up together. Bit stickly, is he, for honesty and decency?” 

“Oh yes.” 

“And dishy.” 

“Oh yes.” 

“Somehow even more so, with the French thing. I’m imagining him shot in misty black and white, leaning against a wall, wearing a hat, music playing, smoking Gauloises. Or Gitanes. Or any cigarettes beginning with G, really.” 

“I see that.” Sherlock got in a sly kick to Seb’s ankle as he hustled him past the principal’s lodgings and nudged him up Staircase Four. 

“Ah. A _proper_ staircase. Stairs the same size, wide carved wooden banisters, windows with not only glass but stained glass, and not stained as in dirty, walls hung with paintings, niches set with statues, wall lights… This is the bizz.” Seb approved. 

“Yes, it’s all the best guide books.”  

“They filmed a bit of that Harry Potter film here you know.” Seb rested for a second in an ornate chair at the bend of the wide stairs, removing the _PLEASE DO NOT SIT HERE_ sign to do so. 

“What?” Sherlock pulled him up and to the next landing, checked the name plate, and rang the bell. 

“ _Horny Fucker_. The porn version. Scenes were shot here by stealth by some unscrupulous filmmakers. Dreadful business. Interesting film though. I enjoyed its take on the duel of the, erm, magic w – Chris!” 

Chris Parrington Andrews aka Chris Paranoid Android stood before them in all his tall, thin, little round glasses and sticking-up cockerel-crested glory. 

“Got you this, buddy. This might be the one that does the trick. All the way from the Big Smoke.” Seb finished the manly handshake and clasp and handed over the small round plastic pot. 

“I’ve _got_ gel in.” Chris held his hand down on the errant lock for a second to flatten it, but it sprang up immediately he removed it. 

“Oh yes.” Seb had a go. “Crunchy!” 

“Come in.” He ushered them into the wide, well-furnished room. Seb turned in a slow circle, examining the huge windows, high ceilings, lamps, cabinets, shelves and décor and the still-slender, still-kiddish-looking man whose slight Potteries accent and carroty hair hadn’t been much dimmed by the passing years.

“Blimey, dude. I’d hate to see the paintings in your attic.” 

Sherlock watch Chris puzzle that out, round lips pursed in thought, round eyes glinting behind round wire-rimmed glasses. He blinked. “Oh, a reference to a famous work of literature. You’re saying I haven’t aged at all.” 

“No; that you’ve got shite taste in art: I mean, the crap on the walls is so bad, I dread to think what’s hidden away in the attic, kiddo.” 

“Oh. I see. This isn’t all mine. It was here – I think layers just get added by the incumbents over the years.” 

“Aha, so when you say Applied Maths, it’s applied to archaeology. You mean maths and fossils.” 

“Mathematical palimpsest,” added Sherlock, for the fun of making Chris spin from one of them to the other. 

“Calm down, Chris. You’ll burst something.” Seb gave him a slow up-and-down look. “Is this your look now, then? This that you’ve got going on? It’s what, po’boy?” He narrowed his eyes at the rolled-back shirtsleeves, the loose bow tie, the braces… “You need a newsboy cap with that.” 

“He’s got one.” Sherlock pointed to the hat stand Chris was trying to slide in front of. “But…the cap is older than the rest of this outfit. It’s as if…it’s an old one you came across while looking out mementos and souvenirs to show us and then dressed to match.” 

“Oh Lord.” Seb tried to reach out for the cap. “Isn’t that the hat Alli gave you to flatten your hair? And that didn’t work? A bit like that ensemble?” 

“Charming.”  Chris tried to glare at them. “Visual dissection, verbal evisceration and death by one-liners.  The lance, the barbs and the coup de grâce. You two together, joined forces…” 

“Olé,” replied Seb. 

“Oh, good one.” 

Sherlock thought so too. 

“How long’ve you been here for now, Chris?” Seb asked. 

“You were here when I came up?” 

“You mean…since we were…Wow. That’s nearly as long as Madoff got.” 

“Oh, I got a few years out for good behaviour. I was at MIT. Combinatorics.” 

_“Institionalised,”_ Seb coughed. “But seriously, Chris, I’m proud of you, buddy.” 

They froze as a cough echoed from the other room. 

“Bad time?” enquired Sherlock. “Are you tutoring?” 

“Professing? Mentoring?” asked Seb. 

“No, being interviewed actually.” Chris put his hands in his pockets and his body curved into a question mark shape. 

“Oh no. You’re not Staircase Hunk of the Month for that god-awful rag, if it’s still going are you?” Seb’s voice was gloomy. 

“No! But they still do that. This is a real journalist. A real – Come and say hello.” He pushed them into the room on the right, and there, sitting at the big table which dominated the room was a tall, wiry blond man whose normally spiky hair was slicked down much more successfully than that of the owner of the rooms. _Frik._ Seb stared at him, then at Sherlock. 

“A _journalist_?” 

“Indeed. Frik Fredrik. I have a degree in journalism from the University of Johannesburg. Here’s my NUJ accreditation.” 

The plastic card the man handed over looked genuine. His voice was carefully Estuary, with the merest hint of raised vowels. 

“Oh, so…” Seb was flummoxed. Sherlock understood: he’d been thrown too, by the excellent cover-probably not-cover. Probably one of the reasons the man was highly sought after within the agency Seb used.

“I was covering the inauguration of the new chair for the TES, then thought I’d do a profile piece, a feature on the newest and youngest appointee to a named chair in Oxford, tie it in to how an ancient college is changing. Adapting. The main paper’s editor liked it, commissioned it for the Culture section…” 

 “But…” 

“And there’s this.” Frik scribbled _do you know if this room’s ‘clean’?_ on a piece of paper and slid it across the table. 

“Oh. Interesting. Idea. And you know what might make it even better?” Seb pocketed the note. 

“What, sir?” 

“Seb, please. A visit to the place Chris gets all his best ideas. Where he first pondered concentration of measure _and_ approximation theory.” Seb recovered quickly. Sherlock loved that about him. 

“Oh, I’ve shown Frik the labs, the gardens, and the chapel tower, where I go to think.” 

“Fuck the lab. I mean the pub!” 

“Oh, thank fuck,” breathed Frik. 

“Come on! Into and out of the laundry passage, through t’other coll - be at the Vaults in a tick!” 

And it really was just a question of slipping via the laundry tunnel into the college next door to the right, and out through its porters’ lodge into the Broad. Sherlock noted Frik the journo becoming Frik the bodyguard in the street. Straightening up, focussed, hyperaware. 

“Any of these bikes yours?” Seb wondered as they passed the usual three-deep heave of push bikes. 

Chris shook his head. “Frik can’t ride.” 

“We don’t have them where I’m from.” Frik scowled. 

“What do you have?” asked Seb. 

“Cars. Bloody big ones. And guns. Even bigger.” The last was muttered, his accent more his own. 

“You should have told me,” Seb said suddenly, motioning towards Chris and his guard behind them as they walked up the side street that could have been and probably had been dubbed the quaintest street in Oxford. He eyed Sherlock from the corner of his eyes, and his lips were thinned. 

“Does it matter? I didn’t exactly tell him. He figured it out.” Sherlock noticed people made way for them on the tiny thoroughfare, four tall men wrapped up in the moment, not tourists or students. People also stared after them. “And it’s true about the newspaper story. What? What’s the problem?”

“We agreed, didn’t we, that… Oh, now’s not the time. Well. In here, chaps.” 

“Hey, what?” Chris put a hand on Seb’s arm as he went to open the glass door of the most old-fashioned tailor’s in Oxford. “You’re not suggesting I have to buy a proper suit for the inauguration, are you? ’Cause you could just say, you know.” 

“Shortest cut in Oxford. Saves going all along and around.” Seb shooed them in. 

“Is that…Mr Wilkes, sir!” The old bloke behind the counter was even more ancient than Young Will, Sherlock judged. “Just look at the collar on that shirt. _Tsk_.” 

Seb submitted to the thin, papery fingers straightening his shirt collar for him, and the voice tutting at the poor fit. “Here, Leonard.” He palmed a present into the elderly hand. 

“Is that…a certain item from a certain tailoring establishment in Singapore?” The old man didn’t even unwrap the tiny gift in its twist of paper. 

“Indeed.” Seb’s gaze rested alongside the old man’s on a wall-mounted display case of metal thimbles. “Stole it myself. But no time today for measuring up. Just –” 

“The usual?” The man beckoned the group behind the counter and pushed aside a curtain to a corridor. He _ahemmed_ and flicked his glance towards a metal tray containing coins. 

“Of course.” A _tink_ rang out as Seb dropped a coin in. Another _ahem_. 

“It’s a pound coin now, sir.” 

“Wow. There’s inflation for you.” Seb dug around for another coin. 

“Each.” 

“Sorry, chaps. Used to be fifty pence per party,” he commented once they’d squeezed down the narrow corridor and out into the tiny service yard and its dustbin-guarded gate.

“You can’t moan at Sherlock for keeping secrets. You’re too fond of them yourself,” Chris said suddenly, making Sherlock turn to stare at him. 

“Don’t worry, buddy. You’ll know where we are when –” 

“Not the Magical Mystery Tour.” Chris brushed rubbish off his trouser leg, then looked at Sherlock, next to Seb. “You said you’d hired him as a consultant on a case at the bank. You didn’t say you were together now.” 

“What makes you say that.” Seb was too clever to ask, “How do you know?” 

“You’re…shining. _Glowing._ Whatever you call it. Both of you. You look the same. Physically and… I can’t explain it. And I’m pleased. Speaking as a mathematician, I mean.” 

“Sorry?” 

“It will answer the question of what happens when an outlier and an anomaly meet.” 

“What does happen when –” 

“I don’t know yet. It remains to be seen.” Chris nodded, his glasses glinting. 

“Which is the outlier and which is the anomaly?” Sherlock asked. 

“Don’t that either yet. Also remains to be seen.” His nod was one of satisfaction. His fingers stole towards a notebook. 

“Yes, well. Like that” – Seb nodded at Frik – “this isn’t for divulging in the High either.” 

“Oh. I’m staying here!” Frik pointed ahead as they squeezed between the bins to emerge right inside the initiates-only passage which gave onto the first courtyard of the oldest pub in Oxford. Probably. 

“Oh, oh, is it true, that rumor about the lock-ins?” Seb’s voice was that of a kid wanting to know Father Christmas was real. 

“Oh yis. As the bill when I check out will attest.” Frik led the way round the side of the outdoor tables to the steps down into the short, leaflet- and notice-walled passage and the first bar, crouching low to enter. 

“Good you’re not banging your head everywhere,” said Sherlock. He’d wondered about that, with the man being tall and from a place where things were built on a larger scale. 

“No problem. First rule of my profession: knowing when to duck.”


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Frik made a signal to the black-clad, green-aproned barman behind the long oak bar and was tossed a bottle of lager. A cold bottle. “Stupidly cold, as we say where I’m from,” he said before he knocked the top off and drank deep. “Same all round?”

“God, no.” Seb shuddered. “Look – there’s someone at our table.”

True – Seb’s preferred table in the old fire pit dip in the corner of this first room was occupied by a small group of students. “Won’t take me a moment.” And he was over there. “Are you going to be long?” Sherlock heard him drawl to the dominant personality seated there. “Only…”

Within a minute the youths had supped up and slouched off.

“What did you show them?” Sherlock demanded. 

“Just this.” Seb showed his security pass for Shad Sanderson. “It’s beyond amazing, all the places it gets one into.”

“Like guarded rooms at hospitals.” Sherlock was thinking back to how this had started. “I need one of those.”

“You do all right with your warrant cards,” murmured a familiar deep, still slightly West Country voice behind him. 

“Monsieur Lestrade! We’re on the same staircase! Please join us.” Seb shepherded the group to the now-free table in the uneven flagstoned floor’s recess. “I’m Sebastian Wilkes of Shad Sanderson, this is Sherlock Holmes, starting a DPhil, this is Dr Chris –”

“Paranoid Android,” said Chris, resignedly. “What? You’d only say it if I didn’t.”

“Frik Frederik.” 

Lestrade looked rather startled, and Sherlock understood – Frik, no longer bodyguard-looking, could blend in anywhere and Lestrade probably hadn’t quite realised it was him. 

“Well, I think this will be fine for our purposes.” Sherlock indicated the squat black-beamed room, its two other tables full of people minding their own businesses, the bar with a short curve leading to the courtyard bar, the moderate foot traffic as people preferred to access the other rooms via the doors from the courtyards, the window which would do as an escape into the yard if necessary and the bodyguard with his back to the wall, his face to the room.

“I’ll get them in. Four pints of local wallop, yes/no?” 

But as Seb got to the bar and the barman came up opposite him, the young man paused, paled, turned to a poster on the wall, and eventually said, “I’ll have to fetch the manager, sir,” before calling for someone called Mr Smith. Sherlock could see what looked like an old photograph stuck up on a white sheet of paper. 

“This is ridiculous!” Seb cried. “It’s about your bloody sheep,” he called over. “It wasn’t even my sheep,” he assured the short, thick-set man now behind the bar. “I was sheep sitting. Mouton minding.”

“You had a _sheep_?” Lestrade asked Sherlock.

“I don’t…”

“Very briefly,” Chris replied. “After prelims. Sherlock got a distinction and thus a scholarship, you see.”

“That’s good?” Lestrade looked as though he needed a drink.

“Oh, it is. Along with the right to wear a longer and more flowing black gown, a scholar’s gown, comes a weirdo historical right to graze a sheep on college ground. No one ever dreams of invoking the right nowadays.”

“Don’t tell me. _He_ did.” Lestrade jerked a thumb at Sherlock, obviously memorising the story for the next Met pub night. 

“Oh, _really_. Can someone of good standing vouch for my behaviour, please? Perhaps a respected detective from the French judicial police who happens to be in my party?” called Seb.

“ _Comment?_ ” replied Lestrade, looking snidely puzzled and shrugging. Sherlock hid his smile in his chest.

“Hey, Smithy man,” Frik chirped up. “It’s all right. He’s solid. I’ll shout him.”

“Right you are, sir.” And Frik received another bottle of lager for his efforts.

“Bloody charming,” Seb called over his shoulder, and was soon back with four pints and carrying bags of crisps and nuts in his mouth. These he dropped into the middle of the table and sat down next to Sherlock, making them all shove round for him to fit at the end.

“Bloody hell,” remarked Sherlock, raising his eyebrows at Seb’s playing waiter.

“I know!” replied Seb. “That’s it for me now. Consider my arse glued to this chair until chucking-out time. I’ll get my next round in if someone fetches it.” He propped the elbow of the arm grasping his glass on the windowsill and propped his feet on a low stool with a sigh of satisfaction.

“I’m beginning to see why the whole marriage thing didn’t work out,” muttered Sherlock. He hooked a foot around the stool leg to drag it under their end of the table for them both to rest their feet on, tangled together. He scowled at Chris until Chris slid his notebook away. He’d never known why Seb preferred this room, never mind this table. The inn’s three courtyards were always heavily used, full of shrieking, flirting, essay-crisis-having students and the other three or four bars were more fashionable and bigger and brighter, louder with music piped in, and quiz nights, or open mic nights, or easier to get served and get meals. But given a free choice of pub and spot, he’d always gone for this unfashionable first room which still smelt of the communal fire that had warmed coachmen entering the city, and this more secluded nook. 

“Same old photos and adverts.” Seb nudged him, pointing to the framed pictures and prints on the walls. 

“It’s a bit, well, dingy, isn’t it for _la jeunesse doree_?” Lestrade was still half in character it seemed. 

“Inspector, let’s drop the guises and kick off, shall we?” Seb said

“Put it in our utilisation time, is it, sir?” Lestrade drank half his glass at one swallow.

“I beg yours?”

“It’s not you I’m here as a favour to.” 

“You did make it sound as though you’d be billing someone for your hours.” Sherlock nudged Seb and looked from him down the table to Lestrade. “Oh. Is this some…personal…thing?”

“Leave it, Sherlock,” advised Lestrade. 

“If there’s a problem, out with it, Lestrade,” said Seb, sitting up straighter.

“I have a slight problem with all the playacting resurrecting-the-past with your ex, yeah. Problem with playacting is someone always gets deceived.”

“That’s…not the case.”

Sherlock blatantly watched the two, trying to decode all the layers. 

“Plus these things never work. Sir.” 

“Don’t call me that.” Seb stared back hard. “And this will. I’ll make it work.”

“As long as no one gets hurt.”

“Isn’t that what we’re all trying to prevent? What we’re all here for?”

“And nothing else? Not fun and games? Mind games, playing both ends against the middle, or hedging your bets, or whatever?”

“Fun, all this speaking between the lines,” said Sherlock, wondering if this was how people felt when he spoke. Normally. 

“I’m serious. I want to be able to move forward. So maybe this, this coming here” – Seb’s gesture encompassed more than the city – “wasn’t the right thing.”

“So not perfect, then. Good to know.” Lestrade drained his glass. “And we’re on the same side. Also good to know.”

“Lestrade, there’s a quick way to settle this. Seb, take him for one of your meetings in the Gents,” suggested Sherlock.

“God no! I wouldn’t want to have to give you another warning. Or a caution. And is that what you…City types get up to?”

Seb choked a little on his drink. 

“I don’t know about City bankers in general, but Seb is known for getting to yes in the most hostile of negotiations in the loo,” Sherlock explained. “He faced up to John and me in the bathroom of a Japanese restaurant and won. Flounced out and everything.”

“Sherlock, you will apologise for introducing such an unsavoury subject in public. Guests present!” Seb waved at the other two men.

“Umm? Oh, don’t mind me.” Chris looked up from scribbling figures in his little book.

“Not listening.” Frik was texting fast and furiously. In Afrikaans, presumably. “Just catching up with the family.”

“Well. I need another. Same again all round?” Lestrade stood.

Sherlock rubbed his knee against Seb’s and jerked his head towards Lestrade. For some reason this was important to him. To them.

“I’ll give you a hand.” Seb actually went to get up.

“So let’s work together.” Lestrade extended his hand to help Seb up, and if his pull was a little hard and heaved Seb to his feet in a jerk, no matter. 

“What are you working on?” Sherlock asked Chris.

“Oh, this is just fun. Just playing with uncertainties. Chances. Polynominal chaos applied to transient problems. Not work.” He closed his notebook. “But I still can’t believe I have the chair. It’s a complete fantasy come true.”

“Should help you get the girls,” Frik said.

“Really?”

“No,” said Frik and Sherlock together, sharing an eye roll, and Frik started to describe his findings so far, or lack of. 

 

“And I thought it would be grander, you know? A huge gateway like in a castle, with towers each side, and flags on a pole on top, and guarded by stone lions or unicorns or something, and all the buildings that honey-coloured stone…”

“Cotswold stone,” Seb answered Lestrade as they returned. 

“Not just a bit of posh architecture, then old medieval stone and brickwork! Colleges are supposed to be arranged oldest to newest, least according to what I’ve read, then yours has got that dirty great Middle Ages bit tucked away at the back!”

“He’s got us there,” said Chris. “And there are 'grotesques.' Not gargoyles: they don’t spit water.”

“And it’s small. I couldn’t find it. I went into the big college next door –”

“Don’t say the name! And don’t you spit,” Sherlock instructed Seb, getting in a quick feel as Seb squashed down next to him

“And then I went into the one on the other side.”

“I did that,” confessed Frik. “Doesn’t exactly advertise, does it, William College? Which is –”

“We’re a well-kept secret,” Seb boasted.

“Not the only one.” Lestrade pointed his glass at Chris. “Talking of secrets, not only is there no enquiry into the other two professors’ deaths, no one knows about the ‘attempt’ on this one. You didn’t say anything about the ‘attack’?”

“Sebastian said not to.” Chris seemed to feel something in the silence. “What? It’s easier, just doing what he says. You will anyway, so why put yourself through grief.”

“Strange. That’s what we say about _him_.”

“Huh,” snorted Sherlock, the him in question.

“I’m sort of beginning to see.” Lestrade nodded. “Oh, not the case. You two. No one else would –”

He shut up. Chris passed him his notebook with a quiet, “Here. This might help.”

Lestrade squinted and scowled at the numbers and brackets. “It doesn’t, but thanks. And I’ve seen nothing untoward at nights. Well, nothing of any concern to Chris. God, students… But you’ve still said nothing to the master?”

“Principal, our coll has. No. Can’t see him being any help,” replied Seb.

“Know him well? It can’t be the same bloke from when you were students? It is? How come? It’s a life position?”

“No; he did seven years, then there was another, and now he’s back as some extension thing as a favour to the college, I understand.”

“Yes, steering it through reorganisation and changes, combining the traditions of the past with new directions for the future. Least that’s what I found out in the Gazette back issues,” Frik added. “And as I was saying, or trying to, it’s –”

“But the deaths could be accidents and –”

“Well then, who’d benefit if Chris, sorry lad, was to get bumped off or –”

“There was opposition to his appointment. The board wanted a college bod, and they take advice from–”

“No; they’d shelve the appointment. They took long enough over it as it was. Just endow the money instead; not like it needs any more cash, with the prince’s swag and –”

“The prince’s not the only one back,” Chris joined in the everyone-speaking-at-once game, and Frik shrugged and shut up, as the talk batted back and forth and theories were aired and ridiculed and no advances were made. The empties had piled up, the noughties nostalgia-fest piped through the inn’s stereo system criticised, ripped-open and ransacked crisp and nuts packets had been stuffed into an empty glass and Seb was making noise about dinner, “and not any fearful student swill,” when Frik leapt to his feet with a polite, “Madam.” 

“Thought I’d find you here,” a squinty-eyed Alli said accusingly to her ex-husband


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

“Did you, sweets? Because it looks as though you tried a few other places first to make sure,” said Seb.

Alli was swaying a little and seem glad to find herself clasped to Chris, who sprang up and cried, “Allegra!” as he hugged her close, plastering a lock of her chestnut hair to her now-smeared lipstick.

Frik went to fetch a chair, and Alli sank down into his vacant spot as he left, blowing him a grateful kiss. He caught it and sat down on the chair he’d grabbed.

“Hullo, all. Oh, waft from the past: the Oubliette!” She pulled a face and looked around at them all. “Oh. Not you, Frik. Or…you Chris. It’s you, Lestrade! I can’t smell Seb, over there, or Sherlock, but I bet yes.”

It was true, Sherlock remembered, that in Hall or in lectures or tutorials, people could tell the Oblique dwellers by their smell.

“Enjoy the boutique?” Seb asked, indicating Alli’s new outfit. She hadn’t been wearing a tie-around dress with long droopy sleeves and panel bits in the afternoon.

“Oh, launch event huge success, yes. Rissa couldn’t come here with me – she’s still selling stuff.”

“ _Launch?_ Is that why you wanted to come up today?”

“When one’s put so much cash into a new venture, it seems only right to be there. I made your excuses to Rissa. She says big thanks for your help.”

“My –”

“Oh. Meant to tell you. Remind me later.”

“Where’s your bike?”

“Bike?” She looked blank. “Oh what. You’re not _still_ trying to make that _useless_ bike polo thing happen, are you?”

“I’ll get you a coffee, Alli.” Lestrade stood.

“Oh, sweet of you. They’ll say the machine’s broken though. They can never be bothered as the drip thing takes ages.”

“They do. I’ll get you one.” Frik went behind the bar, called something through to the other side, and started the machine himself, eyeballing an elderly man and woman who came up eagerly to ask for cups too. “Here.”

“Oh, you are a lifesaver!”

“Part of the job, madam.”

“ _Bodyguard humour_ ,” she whispered to the group. “Oh, thank you.” This last to the barman who came over with a huge jug of Pimm’s. “I forgot I ordered it as I came in, just in case. They take such ages here. Sorry; you do. I’ve been Pimm’s wrangler and I could knock up a 1.5 litre jug in under five minutes. Could you bring more glasses?” She took them and poured, slopping bits of fruit and ice along with the drink for everyone. “Try all the things, grasp all the things,” she said, raising her cup and waiting for _amens_ which didn’t come.

“That’s not actually the college motto?” Seb tried, to receive a dirty look.

“So.” Alli swigged back her first drink and looked around at them. “You pesky kids solved the mystery yet?”

They looked at one another, and only then did it sink in that they’d been talking and debating but not really making notes or advancing and refining theories. And from her light tone, Alli didn’t believe there was a problem. Sherlock caught the look Lestrade was giving her: oh. So he didn’t either. Interesting.

Sherlock looked away as he saw Lestrade looking at Seb to see if or how he was looking at Alli. Oh again. This was – Understandable. Even slightly drunk and uncoordinated she was still warm and fun and drew people to her. Some old don or other had come up and was hugging her, crushing her new dress. She sat again, and Lestrade coughed, trying to draw her attention to how the tie was gaping, trying to get her to make the dip less revealing. Oh for God’s sake.

“Well, you know my theory, kids. Old legless William dunnit. Do you know the story of the college ghost, the original William? He’s often seen legless.” She nodded at the newcomers, Lestrade and Frik, presuming they wouldn’t know the story.

“Not on this bloody debs’ delight fruit cup froth he wouldn’t be,” said Frik.

“And I’ve told you before, it’s not that he hasn’t got legs, just that as he’s seen in the chapel near his slab above his tomb in the crypt underneath, we can’t see his legs, because that new floor’s higher than it was back then,” said Chris.

“But he’s been seen elsewhere in college! People have –”

“Made it up to get out of tutorials they hadn’t prepped for or the college race they were too hung over for, or what not,” Seb threw in.

“So what were you trying to get out of? You said you saw it,” Lestrade asked Chris.

“I didn’t see anything or anyone! That was the point.”

Silence greeted this while those present tried to figure out the point.

“But you know the story of the founding? Of Lord William, landed gent, amateur classicist, keen essayist, wanting to make a stand against all the new-fangled, heretic sciences springing up, trying to squash truth and beauty with their chemicals and scales? He wanted a place for old languages and poetry and art, for the soul to soar, not be weighed and measured. No wonder he’s walking, what with this new chair in maths. No offence, Chris.”

“None taken?”

“So you think that’s why the board and headmaster – sorry, principal – took so long to organise this chair? They were afraid of the ghost?” Lestrade held both his glasses, the pint and the wine glass full of fruit and red liquid, in front of his face to hide his smile.

“Don’t be silly.” Alli’s slap to his arm had him spilling the fruit. “They’re just slow as tortoises. Oh, talking of –”

“Not now, sweets. Please?”

Sherlock looked at Seb trying to head off Alli.

“But they are bloody slow. Glacially slow.” Seb looked around the table. “There’s a new college exhibition and scholarship in maths finally awarded, after much work. We’ll, I’ll, we’ll be meeting the holders at dinner tomorrow. And there’s a new prize, for distinction in the Mathematics in Chemistry prelim –”

“There’s actually that now?” Sherlock’s ungrammatical question made sense to him. He’d insisted on sitting such an exam, and they’d –

“They formalised it after having to set it for you, yes. And now it too carries an award. Eventually. And not a sheep.”

“Oh. Oh.” Sherlock was actually a little flummoxed at this extra proof of the amount of thinking about him Seb had done over the years. He wriggled his hand between them and hoped Seb would get the message. Within seconds Seb’s hand was clasped in his in the tight space.

“I pressed them nonstop about the chair.” Alli giggled a little at the image.

“And I clandestinely donated and sponsored rather than try and put a rocket up their arses.” This was murmured, and Sherlock heard and squeezed tighter.

“What about the benevolent side of the ghost, the Sweet William side?”

“Do what, son?” Lestrade obviously thought Chris had had enough to drink.

“There’s a pigeon hole in the porters’ lodge for the ghost. Apparently his lordship was a cheery old blighter and couldn’t bear people to be in despair. Would give to those in _desperandum_. So if anyone leaves a message in the William slot saying someone is down, the ghost leaves them chocolate or cake or a present. In their pigeon hole. I know.” He looked half sad, half pleased. Seemed that had made his time as a first year bearable.

“Erm…”

“Chris, you idiot! It’s a post! In secret! Different students do it! _I_ was the Sweet William girl for our intake. I was the best sodding Sweet William girl in the college history, for your information. I used to sneak down to the lodge at night and get the messages, and bake and cook and shop nonstop for you all and –”

“Oh God. She’s started.” Seb slumped forward.

“I sweated blood for college! Who do you think knitted you a new scarf when yours vanished? And I know where it went.” She pointed accusingly at Chris. “And I was the best Tortoise Totty college ever had. I polished Big Willy till it shone! Don’t you dare snigger!” This was at Lestrade, at whom Chris was trying to mouth something about the colleges’ tortoise race. “I got my vet up from home to clip its bloody claws! Couldn’t risk a local one in case other colls had bribed him to nobble Big Willy.”

 _“The tortoise,”_ Chris mouthed for Lestrade.

“And I’ll tell you something else.” She put down her glass. It must be good.

“Lord, please deliver us.” Sebs seemed to have found religion. “Not the –”

“School-run chic. I invented it.” She nodded, her lips pursed into a thin line, her brown eyes hard.

“The style?” Sherlock ignored Seb’s poking elbow. “How? I mean you don’t even have children.”

“I could have had children! But it was when our goddaughter Amber was staying when her mother had the new baby. I had to get up early to drop her off at school and it was frantic, all that bloody alpha working mums’ style competition first thing, all urban and smart and real. Oh, edgy yet cosy. Oxy. Morons. So I just stuck on huge scarves, and huge cardigans with huge pockets for all the bits and carried huge bags for all the other bits and –”

“Please not the ballet flats please not the –”

“Wore ballet flats, before you could buy them in shops…” She ignored Seb and his payer-position hands. “I had to get them from theatre shops. And who else should have a child at Amber’s school?”

“Who?” Lestrade was agog. Even Chris was forgetting to eat peanuts.

“Claudia bloody Schiffer!” cried Seb before Alli could.

“The sneaky blonde German cow. Chatting me up for tips. I said forget celebutante It girliness, forget office sleek ‘n’ soignée, it’s flats and trousers for speed and lipstick and dark glasses to cover the cracks and I coined the phrase and next it’s in _Tatler_ , then the _Daily_ sodding _Mail_ and –”

“No!” Lestrade looked ready to arrest the nearest supermodel turned yummy mummy turned busy executive.

“I need the loo.” Alli stood and glared accusingly around.

“Ready when you are.” Seb stood too, and Sherlock and Lestrade glared at him. He sat. “Oh, sorry. Force of habit when there are no other girls present. Lestrade, you should go with her.”

“To the _Ladies_ ’? I couldn’t… We don’t… I mean…”

“It’s too early in their relationship for him to hold the loo door,” Sherlock hissed.

“Chris, you come. Be an honorary lady.”

He stood obediently and held out his arm.

“And he wonders why he can’t get a girlfriend.” Frik stretched out his legs and put his arms behind his head.

“I tried to bring Rissa,” Alli shouted in his ear. “Told her his salary bracket and everything. She might meet us for a snack later. I didn’t mention the braces though. Perhaps we can…” They left and everyone watched them go.

 

“Rissa won’t come for chips, will she,” said Chris later as they sat on the wall eating out of twists of paper from the takeaway near the church. “She’s too grown up.”

“Too chic for chips.” Seb scrunched his paper into a ball and helped himself to Sherlock’s food. “Why didn’t you walk Alli back to the hotel with Lestrade? Rissa might go there for a drink.”

“Nah. It’s okay.”

“You mean it’s the _principal_ of the thing.” Sherlock had remembered an old joke.

“Yeah, be using that one tomorrow.”

“Oh God. You got supper. I have to confess.” Chris looked away, couldn’t meet Seb’s eyes. Even his crest seemed to droop.

“Is that the rule?” Sherlock wondered. “And is that Frik skulking back there?”

“Shh. What?”

“Your parents e-mailed me. Congrats about the chair, of course, and wasn’t it nice you and Allegra would be coming, and wouldn’t it be even nicer if you…” He pushed his battered cod back into the wrapper and folded the top down.

“What.” Seb twitched it from Chris’s hand and filched a bit. Then a bit more.

“Were there together. Were back together. I said yes, of course. I didn’t know about you. Two. Four.” He looked down the street the now-absent two had gone along.

“And?” Seb spoke through a mouthful of purloined chips.

“And that if you were there together in the place you met it might rekindle the flames. Of the romance.”

What other flames, Sherlock wondered.

“And if I could do anything to help, it would be… Well. So when the thing happened, I thought if I told you, you’d be intrigued and you’d both stay in college to help and you’d –”

“Get kindled. Kindle ourselves.”

“So it didn’t happen?” Sherlock asked. “No one –”

“I don’t know! Maybe I just wanted it.”

“To be pushed to your death? Because I could help with that,” Sherlock replied, looking meaningfully up at the church’s clock tower.

“I think there was something. But maybe I was just thinking about the other candidates and… Well. I wanted you to know.”

“Thanks? Come on. Let’s walk you home. Then we’ll bitch about you when we’ve dropped you off,” said Seb, shoving Chris upright.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

“I think we’ve time to show the blighters next door what we jolly well think of them,” Seb announced. They’d seen Chris home and had reached the Oblique.

“Oh God. I thought you must have forgotten about that.”

“Belle. Could I? Ignore tradition? Come on. Has to be done. The brick is round about…here…”

It was too. “You know, in many ways, I’d rather we just threw litter over the wall,” commented Sherlock. “I mean, I sometimes think it might look suspect in some way, grown men sticking their penises through a hole in a wall.”

“And peeing.” Seb turned a frowning face to Sherlock. “Does that make it more, or less suspect?” He finished, withdrew, and zipped up.

Sherlock did the same and started laughing. “I never did believe you that this was what the Eton Wall Game consisted of.”

“That’s because you’re smart. But it’s true they chose sides for games by dividing the boys into roundheads and cavaliers.”

“I’ve always been surprised you’re not one. A roundhead, I mean. With your mother being American. They’re keen on it, from what one understands.”

“Pa hid the scissors. But I’m glad. I’m fond of my foreskin. Yours too. Fond of fondling it too. Yours too. Hey, fancy doing some guerrilla signage this weekend? I thought if we made it look like the chapel’s closed, at least the service and concert might be scrapped.”

“Hmmm. I bet Young Will’s got all the signs locked safely away. He probably knows students used to post spurious ones at the lodge and the door of the Hall as the fancy took…him.”

“I think my personal favourite, if I had to choose,” Seb said, “was _CLOSED: ‘MORSE’ FILMING IN PROGRESS_. It got me out of a collection once.”

Sherlock recalled the chorus of tutts and sighs with which the signs had been greeted by students and dons. “Wasn’t there a _CLOSED FOR ‘CRIMEWATCH’ RECONSTRUCTION_ one?” He shivered on the stairs as the breeze came in the empty window. “You never had a coll scarf,” he suddenly remarked.

“It’s the wrong shade. Made me look green. I’m a winter, not a spring,” Seb answered absently, studying Sherlock’s old floor.

“This is me,” Sherlock announced, one floor up. “Well, thanks for the drink and everything. It was simply lovely to catch up.” He let Seb stroke his hand as he shook good-bye and watched him trudge up to the top. He counted out the minutes until he could reasonably ascend to Seb’s room. Not just until the staircase quietened, but without looking too desperate. Judging the time right, he opened his door – to find Seb there. In a half-arsed disguise, which was more than Sherlock had thought of donning: he’d just pulled his coat and scarf on against the chill of the stairs.

“Oh. Hug a hoodie, is it?”

Seb eased in, pushing Sherlock backwards to gain entrance. He twitched the hood of his oversized sweatshirt back. “Mate. More like bonk a banker. Although actually I want to bang you.” His grin was crooked, rueful, his still-uneven teeth revealed. “Does putting out the trash can still mean the same it did, do you think?”

“The wastepaper basket? We could try, see if we remain undisturbed in the morning.”

Seb slid it out and closed the door. “It’ll make more room, anyhow. I’d forgotten how squalid…”

Sherlock knew what he meant. The study-room, although not tiny, contained bedroom and living room space, kettle, fridge and wash basin. And with his stuff spread out... “I was on my way upstairs to your hospitality suite. See if I could beat you to the gin. But, too late.” He could smell it on Seb’s breath.

“I want to fuck you. Don’t you know the rules? If I come to your bed, it’s to take you.” Seb’s navy-blue eyes gleamed in the wan light of the desk lamp.

“There’s rules? There’s rules, of course.” Sherlock hadn’t drunk much, never did, but thought he must be more pissed than he’d realised. It made sense. As much as anything did with Seb.

“So? I’m waiting! Naked, now!” Seb clarified, at Sherlock’s puzzled face. Sherlock took off his coat and scarf and hung them on the back of the door, having to squash around Seb to do so.

“Any preference?” he asked, as he undid his shoes and kicked them and his socks off.

“Trousers first. Let me see you in just the shirt and undies. Oh, yes. The new boxers! Look great on you. I thought they would. Not so quick with the bloody shirt buttons! It’s not a race. Oh, yessss.”

“Fine like this?” Sherlock gave him a twirl, making his open shirt fan out and flutter around his chest.

“Very fine. Completely fine.” Seb was allowed to undress quickly, it seemed, and was now barefoot and divested of his fleecy sweatshirt, lounging on the bed in polo shirt and chinos. He pulled Sherlock down and pushed him flat. “Small single bed. We shall be very cramped.” He made Sherlock flex up so he could remove his boxers. “Look at that. Perfection. Deserves a present.” He fished into the pouch of his thrown-aside top and withdrew a slim box from some exclusive boutique or other and held it out for Sherlock to peer inside at the metallic, cylindrical object. “Just a little token of my esteem.”

“A vibrator? How did you know I needed one?”

“ _Vibr_ – limited edition platinum anal vibrator, oik. Understated elegance.”

“Iconic design?”

“Umm. Elegant. Discreet. With intricate scrolling and etching. Had a personalised inscription put on for you. You’ll have to see if you’re clever enough, sensitive enough, maybe, to work out what it says.”

‘“Be mine’? ‘Kiss me’?”

“It’s not a bloody Love Heart!”

“Is it medical-grade platinum? And shower safe? Because –”

“Sherlock.” The brooding note in Seb’s huskier voice and the heavy-lidded look to his eyes made Sherlock drop the teasing. “Let me see you. You obviously like the present.”

True – he was stirring to life at the mere thought. Or maybe just at Seb’s proximity. Seb wanted to see him play with himself, get hard for him. No problem. Not with Seb lounging there, hooded-eyed, tipping out the new toy and playing with it, warming it between his hands…

“This etching is designed to stimulate the prostate,” Seb murmured, his eyes following the quickening movements of Sherlock’s hand, watching the beads of pre-cum thicken and Sherlock spread them over the swollen reddened head of his cock. He signalled, and Sherlock bent his other arm up behind his head, resting on it, and drew up his legs to rest the soles of his feet on the bed.

“You look fantastic.” Seb ripped open a sachet and squeezed lube onto the vibe. “And you’re going to look even more amazing taking this. It’s a little big. Might stretch you a little. Might make you moan. A lot.” It didn’t look that threatening, slim and shiny, and Sherlock understood Seb was talking things up. For both their benefits. Seb teased Sherlock first, switching the device on and rubbing its smooth rounded end over his balls. Over and around and under, then slipped it lower, to stimulate where Sherlock was very sensitive. He squirmed and gasped.

“You…” Seb couldn’t go on. He switched the vibe off. “Deserve a kiss.” And he positioned himself in between Sherlock’s spread legs to pin his arms to the pillow as he leant over and kissed him. His weight rested against Sherlock, heavy and meaningful. Seb bit down on Sherlock’s lower lip, eliciting a long, low moan that sounded wanton, to Sherlock’s ears at least, but which obviously pleased Seb. He thickened even as he rested over Sherlock, and Sherlock wondered if this would bring about a change of plan, if Seb would fuck him.

“No. I’m going to fuck your mouth. While I fuck you.” Seb pulled back a little, and Sherlock heaved, struggled, as if trying to get free. Seb’s grin took over one side of his face, crooked, rapacious. “ _God, Belle._ You here, like this, for me. It’s mind-blowing. This is going to be so fucking good.” The last word was heavy and dark. Sherlock shivered, his nipples hardening into tight peaks as a dull buzz stirred the silence. Seb had switched the wand on again.

“One of the quietest on the market. Designed not to be heard in communal situations,” Seb whispered. “So I’ll really hear you moan and cry for me. Maybe even scream for me. Scream my name. Until I start skull fucking you, that is. Keep touching yourself.” This last was sharper, more of an order, and Sherlock obeyed the bite in the tone, the pleasure-pain scourge of the command. He wasn’t sure what had brought this on. Seb had been almost…reverent with him since they’d got back together and before, when they’d first – he hadn’t –

“This is the kind of going down I prefer,” was all the warning Sherlock got before a kneeling Seb bent his head over him to swallow his prick down to where his own hand still looped it. The inhumanly too-perfect constriction and hot, wet heat made him thrash and howl. His hands fell limp to his sides, and although he tried to quiet, his body arched again as it felt the first probe, the initial blunt push at his hole, the too-much and not-quite-enough tickle, insistent, demanding –

“Oh, you’re too skittish.” Seb’s lips were swollen, his eyes watering and his fringe flopping onto his sweat-sleek face when he raised it. “This won’t do.” He repositioned himself, sitting close to Sherlock, his stretched-out legs hooked over Sherlock’s still spread ones, trapping them in place. “Perfect. You’re perfect. You’re…” And again he abandoned speech in favour of actions, plying his device and playing it, his grunts and murmurs of appreciation and Sherlock’s groans of reaction becoming lost to the narrative commentary.

“There’s the tip gone in. Stop fighting it. Don’t clench. It makes it worse. Don’t close up. Push down into it. Oh, you’re taking it beautifully. You’re so flushed… Looks amazing with the silver. Is that too much?” Seb had advanced it in a push. “Christ. I have to film this one day. You, sucking this in, bathed in sweat, your whole body dark rose, your eyes huge…” He withdrew the vibe and fucked it in and out, his eyes fixed on his work, an uneven tooth gnawing on a lip in concentration, then pushed hard, breaching Sherlock farther. “Oh, is that…let me just turn it… Wow.” He lifted his head to meet Sherlock’s gaze, and suddenly the intimacy of the act, of the moment pressed in on them.

Sherlock found he had his hands flat by his sides on the bed, fighting not to ball them into fists, fighting not to claw at the sheet, fighting not to curl up and away from the intrusion, the torment. He breathed through his nose, looking Seb in the eyes and not letting his body buck and heave. “Oh, Belle.” Seb found some mercy and twisted the vibe slightly, so the raised decoration wasn’t rubbing pitilessly on Sherlock’s bump of gland, wasn’t wrenching a scream, barely stifled, from the depths of his soul. He let out a sigh, which wasn’t allowed to be one of relief – Seb eased the toy even farther inside him. Sherlock didn’t think it was possible and turned anxious eyes to his tormentor.

“That’s all the way. I can’t believe how well you’re taking it. God, I have to stuff your mouth full as well. Love your mouth. You know I do. Can’t wait to get between those gorgeous lips, see them around me. Christ, I’m rock hard. For you. Bet you still feel like velvet. Can you remember how I like it? No problem if not. No finesse required; I just wanna fuck down your throat. Right down that long column and stoke myself through your skin. Play with yourself. For me.”

He didn’t know if he could, but tried, and Seb was pleased by this. “You’re almost there. Slow a little. I want…” To kneel over Sherlock’s face and unzip his trousers. To hold Sherlock two-handed by his soaking curls and whisper-urge him to open for him, to take him, to pleasure him. Sherlock almost choked, almost couldn’t breathe though Seb’s erection filling his mouth, shoving down his throat. There was panic, doubt, then sharp triumph in taking it and mastering it, in sucking and tonguing, making Seb moan in helpless desperation even as he held Sherlock trapped, forcing him. Then their soap-bubble rhythm was shattered again: Seb found just the angle, the line to thrust not just himself into Sherlock’s half-eager, half-nerve-wracked mouth, but to thrust Sherlock up and down, making him fuck himself on the vibrator lodged deep.

It couldn’t last, not with that force and power and push and pull. Couldn’t hold, and Sherlock started to break, to fall apart under the brute stimulation and almost brutal taking. Seb pushed a hand down, seized one of Sherlock’s and squeezed it under his around Sherlock’s neglected cock, which was as engorged and full and hurting as his. It only needed a few tight, hard strokes and Seb’s filthy, wicked orders to him to take it, love it, and Sherlock was coming hard, pulsing over himself, his lower body aching to leap upwards and prevented, held as much captive by Seb’s weight as his head was by Seb’s grasp. He started to choke as Seb came, spurting down his throat, filling his mouth, and Seb eased off, backed off, still working him and still thrusting in and out, if not as furiously. And the vibrator was still in place, squirming inside him, wringing more response from him, spinning the throes of his orgasm out and out …

Until Seb milked himself of his last drops, right onto Sherlock’s lips, and moved off and away, jerking Sherlock upwards and off the punishing, inhumane vibrator. Seb nudged it farther away and turned it off. Their breathing was loud in the hard, pulsing silence which followed. As Sherlock opened his eyes to regard Seb, Seb squeezed his shut and slumped down the bed, sprawled over Sherlock but not cuddling or holding him, just trapped there by the confined space and their dead drops.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

“Okay.” Sherlock wheezed, coughed, and tried again. He twitched his leg to dig into Seb. “What. The. Fuck?” No response made him poke his knee more. “I mean, seriously?” A thump of his fist got Seb’s attention. ‘“ _Skull fucking? '_ I want to feel my prick down your throat from the outside'? 'I want to tickle your tonsils from the inside’? What the hell have you been reading? Or watching? Without me?” He coughed again to clear his throat and felt the strain. He rocked his head from side to side to ease the neck muscles and rubbed his throat a little. He wiped his mouth on the pillow, whether mitigating or worsening the tight, scratchy disinfectant smell, he didn’t know.

“I...I don’t know what that was or where the fuck it came from. It was like it wasn’t me.” Seb raised anxious eyes to Sherlock.

“Like an out-of-body experience?” Sherlock had had a few. Usually drugs had been involved.

“Or like being possessed.” Seb moved up and sat back to cradle Sherlock’s hand in his. Sherlock pushed himself up too. “But that was…appalling. Crass. I’m…an oik. A total chav. I behaved like a townie. I should do penance at a Centre Parc.”

“Hey.” Sherlock caught the beat of fear, or anguish behind the words. “Don’t beat yourself up. I’ll do that for you when you drop off to sleep. Wanker.”

“Sherlock, if I thought I’d hurt you, I’d…”

Sherlock squeezed the hand in his. “Like I said, I’ll take care of it when you’re asleep.” He patted Seb’s arm.

“It’s this place. Belle, can’t you feel it? It’s not real. It’s…”

“Possessing you?”

“I don’t know! It’s like Disneyland. Some weird hyperreal experience. It’s not just me. Chris was going for Mathlete of the century, turbogeek edition. Alli was like some sorority princess on speed.” He was almost frantic. A sudden ruffle of noise, presumably from the grounds of the college next door, not that raucous but carrying in through the open window, seemed a fitting soundtrack.

“It’s not, I mean it _can’t_ be the place. You mean we’re doing it to ourselves? But worse? You were never quite like –”

“But we can’t go back. As humans, that it. We don’t work that way. And I wouldn’t want to.”

“But can we go forward, Sebastian?”

“Yes! I…don’t know. Oh, God.” Seb gently smoothed Sherlock’s shirt from his shoulders and along his arms. He patted and wiped Sherlock with it. “This is beyond redemption. I’ll get you another tomorrow,” he murmured, helping Sherlock to lie down flat.

All that largesse, Sherlock thought. He watched Seb strip and saw Seb’s gaze fixed on the redness on Sherlock’s neck and chest from being constricted, saw him note Sherlock’s still-slumped sprawl. It made Sherlock turn away more. Seb turned off the lamp.

“I couldn’t live with hurting you,” came his voice, quiet and small in the darker muffle of the room, before he returned to the bed.

“Well. I’m not saying I’m averse to the occasional bit of S&M. When the mood’s right. With warning.” And when did I grow so boring, Sherlock silently wondered.

“S&M? Mate! PTO!” exclaimed Seb, and he pulled, and Sherlock twisted around, so he was wrestled into a clinch. “You know the most significant part of S&M, BDSM, IPO, IA, any initials thing, really?” Now his voice wasn’t so scared sounding, and his fringe flopped over Sherlock’s, and his eyes were gaining a gleam.

“No?”

“The aftercare. I’m going to cherish you. To kiss you asleep.”

Sherlock’s mouth was turning up into a grin, but Seb managed to cover it with his, and then, gently, softly –

“ _Yeuchh_! No offence mate, but you taste foul.”

“I know, because you do! You might want to rethink your food and drink choices next time before ejaculating down someone’s throat!” hissed Sherlock.

“Shhhh. Sorry. Sorry. I really am.”

“You should be. Were you off your face? Without telling me? Without cutting me in? I mean, there’s dirty talk and there’s porn film cutting-room-floor rejects. Thought you had more discrimination. More taste.”

“I’d’ve thought I tasted better.”

But Sherlock settled down and let Seb pet and cuddle him.

“I’m going to stroke you to sleep,” he heard Seb whisper. Then, “first to wake fucks the other?”

Although that was very Seblike, Sherlock wondered if he’d imagined it. But imagination or not, it proved impossible to accomplish: they were both woken by noise on the landing outside.

“Worse than your daily,” Sherlock groused, his voice morning rough, his body twisted and cramped from accommodating a partner in the single bed.

“Not daily. Thrice-weekly.” Seb gave the hugest yawn and stretched in his turn. “Pity we’re not here as a couple, even if not staying together. Then my ‘treat-me-right-see-you-right’ gift would have included you.”

“Oh, you know something? I’m not your kept bitch.” Sherlock leant back to study Seb, feeling most surprised at what he’d said. “All this bounty, paying for things, paying for people, lording it over them: maybe that’s what led to all the _droit de cuissage_ last night.”

“Tea? Coffee?” Seb had slid out of bed and was by the hospitality tray, switching the kettle on and scratching at his morning stubble. He’d always said how much he envied Sherlock’s slower-growing beard. And the way it came in red. “And I thought Lestrade was the one doing the French thing?” Oh, so Seb. He rattled in the fridge and took out two small bottles of water, one of which he passed to Sherlock. “I’ve got more money than you. It’s just a resource to be used. No big.”

“You’re not funding my DPhil. There’s no need for one thing. I won’t be living in and –”

“Just travelling up and down a lot. And stuck in a lab, presumably at Barts, a lot.”

“Problem?”

“We’ve never discussed it, not exactly. It’s a big commitment.”

“Like your job.”

“And that plus your cases will take a great deal of your time. I thought we were buying and renovating 221 which –”

“Which you decided.”

“Oh, _God_.” Seb made a pot of tea. “This is so fucking _hard_.”

Sherlock waited a beat, but no pun, no joke came. “Yes,” he replied.

“I keep thinking more and more it was a bad idea to come here. Like this, I mean. It seemed, I don’t know, a lark?” His mouth twisted, but not with amusement. “But life’s not a lark, is it. Not when one’s grown up. Which one has to do.” He was waiting for Sherlock to speak, but Sherlock kept silent. “Which is hard.”

After a minute, he passed Sherlock a cup. “One can’t go back,” he muttered.

“Indeed.” But did things go forward, lineally, in relationships? Didn’t they ever get pulled back, yanked backwards and jerked forwards, _The Rollercoaster Ride_? He didn’t know – how could he? Seb ought to know. He’d been in one. Been married.

“I have to get to work.”

Sherlock didn’t bother saying anything about Seb’s escape clause. “Going to the office, dear?”

“A bit, dear.” Seb finished tugging his clothes on. “And I love you.”

“I know,” Sherlock murmured. “I know,” he said again as Seb left, a little louder, for him to hear. He didn’t know what it meant, though, and wondered what it meant to Sebastian. Initially puzzled by the shine of silver on the floor, he realised it was the platinum vibrator Seb had brought to his room, and…used. The scrollwork was elegant enough, he supposed, and the stylised writing inside the etched heart, the lines and curves of which Seb had deliberately and ruthlessly played over his prostate, said _Belle_. Fucked by himself.

This was the smaller, slimmer anal-play version of the device, of course. The original luxury toy, the longer but still slim and sleek vaginal vibrator wand had been created for women. If Sherlock recalled correctly, the most expensive model had been a limited edition item and its personalised inscription encrusted with diamonds to stimulate the G-spot, for God’s sake.

It occurred to him to wonder if Seb had bought one of those for Allegra and if so, what was the done thing to do with such objects once the relationship ended. Women kept their engagement rings, even if their engagement was broken off before the wedding, and he didn’t think they had to hand them back should the marriage end. But personalised sex toys? Couldn’t really see them being used with a subsequent partner. Or even solo – wouldn’t they be a permanent reminder of the ex? And what had been the inscription on Allegra’s, if there’d been such an item? _Sweets_ , Sebastian had called her a few times yesterday. But Sherlock knew that was he called a lot of women, a general epithet. Presumably the true and individual, meaningful pet name – Christ; what a concept. Endearment, then – had vanished into the aether, like _Belle_ had for so many years?

This was getting him nowhere. He was angry and disgusted at the turn his thoughts had taken, that they’d been centring on Sebastian, Seb and him, and not the case. If there even was a case. The personal and the professional, the new and the old – it was all swirling together, out of his control. He wasn’t sure he liked it. He was almost glad he had to see Dr Ward, even if would mean the same argument about introducing a more commercial slant to his proposed work to persuade one of the university’s research groups to admit him. He was even gladder to get a text from Chris and divert to meet him in the coll’s Garden Meadow.

He tried not to laugh at the mismatched duo, the taller, tanned, blonder one of whom, in efficient running gear with his fists taped, and wrist and ankle weights on and leaping up into kickboxing moves every few strides, outpaced and outclassed the skinny, white omega in his baggy shorts and vest.

“I saw it,” panted Chris, stopping near him and bending double, gasping. “Last night. I felt a bit dizzy so I walked around – just around Old Quad, like Frik said, if I’m alone – and it was on the roof.”

“What roof.” Sherlock eyed the scarlet-faced, wet-haired mouth-breathing Chris and the cool, unruffled South African.

“The chapel tower. No; I didn’t go after it. I went in for my phone or a camera, but when I came out, it was gone. I called Lestrade – he wasn’t back.”

And they’d found no excuse for Frik’s presence at night, both men objecting to any ‘overnight guest’ subterfuge. “You could’ve called me. Or Sebastian.”

“Earlier you looked… You were… I thought I’d better not.”

“It’s what we here for, idiot.”

Chris took the name-calling in the stride of someone who had objective proof in the shape of a named chair from one of the world’s oldest universities he was not an idiot. “But you know what it means,” he continued. “If I met it before, that was the second time. And that means one more, and I die. If you believe all those stories. Alli told us that one last night, remember, on the way to get supper?”

“A,” Sherlock began, “You’ve only seen it – if you have – this once: you didn’t see it before. And B, that’s a load of crap. It doesn’t square with Lord William’s benevolence that’d he go around, what, scaring people to death?”

“Not that. More like he’s an omen. A sign. And maybe the Sweet William stuff is wrong. He was very cantankerous about defending his ideas. I’m sort of scared of seeing it again.” Chris rested against a tree trunk and tried not to slide down it. The healthy body for the genius mind to try and get a girlfriend regime he’d been put on was killing him.

“And C, put these on.” Frik spoke up and handed over a pair of dark glasses. “Made for the glare of SA veldts. You won’t see a thing, least of all a phantom. Keep ’em on, problem solved. Not that there’s any ghost.”

Sherlock stifled a grin as Chris slotted the reflective glasses on over his and pulled the elastic tight around the back of his head. It was hard to think of hauntings and apparitions in the day time, and especially when the sun was out, making the old yellow stone walls here look golden and friendly, the trees and grass green, the albeit-sluggish trickle of stream sparkle.

“I don’t suppose you believe in ghosts,” he said to Frik. “Don’t have them where you’re from?”

“I don’t believe in this ghost, no. I’ve worked in a few haunted places. I’m no slouch at ghost hunting. There’s no feel of one here. It’s a fake. A set-up.”

Chris had started to get his normal colour back; the ripe tomato had begun to fade, but now he blushed.

“Marketing, maybe?” Frik was thinking out loud. “Attract students? Most colleges have a resident ghost.”

With a heavy between-gritted-teeth sigh Sherlock wondered if Chris was still wishful-faking, not to persuade Sebastian and Allegra to…anything, but if it was his and Seb’s turn to be…rekindled by Chris, the world’s worst matchmaker. And Frik. God. The pair of them working together – Cupid and Psycho. Did Chris want to keep him and Seb there? Had he sense they were having…teething clichés? Was he making up for his faux pas in getting Seb and Alli back there? Did he want to spend time with Alli _himself_? Whatever, Sherlock’s head was starting to throb.

“I’m not inventing it. I saw something white last night. And before, I sensed something. That’s what made me ring Seb. Look, our first instincts, our initial reactions are usually correct. After, I tried to rationalise it away, told myself I was exaggerating to lure the pair of them here to please Mr and Mrs Wilkes and Mrs Chamberlyn. She e-mailed me too.”

Chris. The darling of parents everywhere. “Well, tell Seb. And Lestrade. And Alli. Why not. Get everyone’s thoughts.”

“Wait. The ghost’s been seen indoors, in the chapel, for instance. I can’t keep these sunglasses on inside, can I?” asked Chris.

“Yes. Just tell anyone who asks they’re to cover your black eye,” Sherlock replied.

“I don’t have a black eye.”

“Chris.” Sherlock went for a pun even Seb wouldn’t. “You really do walk into these things, don’t you.” He shook his head, then signalled to Frik who stepped forward, into Chris’s space. Chris shrieked, making a group of girl joggers turn, then sped off, anti-shade shades firmly in place despite his pace.

“Fastest I’ve ever seen him shift,” commented Frik, taking off after him.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

Sherlock walked back from the Science Area on the edge of the Parks. He associated being there with all the noise and mess of the new Chemistry Research lab being built, and the pointlessness of his postgrad studies after Seb was no longer in Oxford. He’d never liked the walk, and scorned bikes of course, but wished he’d called a cab.

“Funny. Didn’t think you’d grow even ruder than you were before.” Dr Ward’s quiet observation, coming once they were alone after he’d tried to interest Sherlock in another research group and its professor and vice-versa had Sherlock staring at him. He knew it was serious: the elderly man, although standing folded-armed to the left of him, as was his wont, wasn’t peering at him out of the corners of his eyes. He’d actually turned his head to him. Sherlock wondered if this would be one of those rare times the elderly man would move to stand in front of what he was engaged on. There’d been three in university memory.

Sherlock took a second to chart the changes age had wrought in his once supervisor. His hair, what there was of it was now white and had receded to cup the sides and back of his – pointed – head until the tops of his ears. His eyebrows were still dark and now even bushier, standing up in points halfway along the line, like Dali’s moustache. Sherlock avoided the bright almost black eyes scrutinising him.

“If you want to study for your doctorate, you need a group. Either Paxton or Barry’s would do, depending on whether you slant towards protein chemistry or bio-organic chemistry.”

“You mean towards an application in biotechnology or computational molecular modelling.”

“Don’t be naïve, lad. I thought you lived in the big city? It’s all spin-out activities and industrial partners these days. And if you don’t want to sit your DPhil, why are you here?”

He hadn’t really had an answer to that, he reflected, and his explanation of his sudden wish to return and pursue and refine his line of research had been met with a sideways-on glance. He suddenly felt a chill of understanding for Seb: was he feeling as foolish as Sherlock was at being caught up in his own subterfuge? Sherlock had trotted out a line to Allegra about starting his doctorate rather than say he was engaged on investigating her business. He’d used the same story on colleagues of Seb’s at a lunch. Why? Had he thought announcing he was a consulting detective would…compromise Seb in some way? It wasn’t that he’d been…trying to impress, was it? No. He didn’t even know Sebastian’s co-workers, so hadn’t. And he had not been…dazzling Seb, showing off by throwing the idea, his prowess out, like before. Had he? Or trying to justify and legitimise all the time and effort he put into research and study for whatever case he was working on, however trivial?

No. It was just the same cover story had served as a pretext for being back in Oxford, investigating this case that wasn’t a case. And his frustration and irritation at not finding a supervisor and group tailored to his needs, even with the help of his former supervisor, now on the cusp of retirement just meant he was deep in his own story, his own lie, didn’t it? He didn’t actually want to sit his DPhil, here, now, did he? It wasn’t really convenient.

So he couldn’t really blame Seb for getting caught up in his own self-woven web of deceit. But that brought the question: just who or what the fuck had Seb been pretending to be? Because Seb hadn’t behaved before, or didn’t naturally behave quite like, well, _that_ , did he? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Sebastian had been right about one thing: this was hard. His mood intensified as he passed lanyard-wearing princelings stationed around the college grounds and lingered to hear they’d been deployed to wait for Sebastian and Allegra or possibly just Sebastian, if the rumour he’d been dumped _again_ was true, to assist him, only there was no sign of him, the porter said he hadn’t checked in today…

Obviously no one had thought to ask Young Will if Seb had checked in yesterday. And maybe Seb just wasn’t answering his bell. Sherlock rang it and there was no sound. He’d disconnected it. Sherlock crept up to the top floor as discretely as he could. He could hear Seb talking. He was pacing, on his mobile, probably working, as he’d said. All he needed was an Internet connection.

“Oh, sweets. Send the latest figures and I’ll…” He’d walked away from the door. Was he talking to Allegra? About her stupid clothes shop thing? “Projections are fine at this stage. I don’t care. We can absorb that.” _Stupid jargon._ Sherlock felt a jolt: did Sebastian still support his ex-wife financially? Her photography gallery hadn’t made much money, and lately most of it had been the result of her unwittingly letting the location be used as a trendy, convenient venue to trade drugs.

“Don’t know how you put up with me. You’re an angel. I’ve told you that before haven’t I? Probably not this week though.”

The door on the floor below opened and the room’s inhabitant came out. A woman glanced up as she descended the stairs, and Sherlock scowled as she saw him. He had no excuse to be up there. As he went back to his room, he bit the side of his thumb in thought. No one could accuse Sebastian of being unfaithful. He’d kept faith with his exes – Sherlock, then Alli. And tonight he and Allegra were invited to dinner at the principal’s lodgings. This was a mess. And Sherlock, without quite understanding what he was doing or why he was doing it, booted up his laptop and connected via Skype to a person who’d, okay, caused a few messes for him, but who sorted them out too.

“Sherlock.”

“Mycroft.”

“Greetings over with, then.” Mycroft sat back in his ornate, old-fashioned chair, the perfect furniture for his heavy, antiquated office, and regarded him. “I believe the next question is usually to ask from where the other party is calling, isn’t it.”

“Please. As if you can’t see.”

“Hmm. Oxford. Oxfordshire. I won’t bother asking if you’re incarcerated as I can’t think of any secret or sensitive location you’re likely to have broken into there. Oxford… Oh…”

Sherlock watched Mycroft’s eyes shine a sharp jewel blue as he computed, saw the slight flicker as he assessed data, data he gathered in, turned over, sucked on like boiled sweets. “I don’t want to keep you from your vital work,” he broke in.

“What do you want, Sherlock.”

Sherlock swallowed the customary irritation he felt at Mycroft’s non-question questions. “I want to give you the chance to make amends for what you did,” he announced brightly, and very much enjoyed the sheen of puzzlement which overlaid Mycroft’s impassive mask, albeit for scant seconds before he smoothed it away.”

“What I did.”

“To Sebastian. You tried to abduct him. That’s not very good. Very bad, in fact. You could have played nicely with the poor chap, but –”

“ _Poor chap?_ That City thug beat me up, for God’s sake!”

Sherlock recoiled. He’d rarely seen Mycroft react like this. “You underestimated him. Your mistake. Is that what you’re so annoyed about? Or is it that he knocked your tooth out? The one you, with your phobia of dentists, spent a long time getting treated? Because I can send it back to you.”

“Sherlock. As ever, what I do, is to protect –”

“Don’t care. Not interested.”

“So.” Mycroft exhaled. “Amends, how? Am I to pay his dry cleaning bill to get my blood removed from his jacket? Or shall I send a new phone to replace the one which he dropped and shattered as he went what I believe the younger generation call ‘ballistic’?”

“Amends to _me_ , Mycroft.” He saw his brother’s eyes widen a fraction at his tone. “You had no right to mess with –”

“Your things? Is that what he is?” Mycroft left the silence lengthen before sighing. “Tell me. I’m rather short on time. I was in a meeting, as you might imagine.”

“I need an invite to the dinner being held by the principal of William College this evening in his lodgings. It’s a semi-private affair, but part of the weekend inauguration of the endowing of a new chair.”

“By whom? In what?”

Sherlock reluctantly parted with the information.

“Why are you there? Is…everything all right, Sherlock?”

“I’m organising my doctoral supervision. Don’t ask. It’s nothing to do with you. And yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Oh. I see. Pray tell me, Sherlock. What’s it like?”

“Oh, what?”

“Caring. Feeling.”

“You’ve been married.”

“And?”

Sherlock had known Mycroft would want a pound of some flesh or other. He worked in government. “Inconvenient. Niggling. Like…Oh, like you’re leaving the house and you think, no, you know intellectually you’ve got everything, but you check again, and still there’s something you think might be missing. And this persists, all through the morning. Inconvenient.”

“Niggling. I see. And that’s quite pitiful, Sherlock.”

“Yes. Oh, have I told you how much I dislike you?”

“Not for a while, no.”

“Consider it said. Now, the price?”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you want in exchange, Mycroft?” He raised his voice. Seemed the old duffer had gone hard of hearing after so many years of underlings whispering into his ears.

“Why, nothing at all, Sherlock. You’ve already given me some valuable information. Now, as ever, it’s merely a question of knowing how and when to best use it.” And Sherlock hated, simply hated, that supercilious raised-eyebrow look of his brother’s.

“I really do dislike you, _brother dear_.”

“Well, be that as it may, _little brother dear_ , I suggest you get your suit pressed. Oh, and your dinner jacket for high table tomorrow. Consider that your birthday present. Oh, and you’ll need a date, of course, for tomorrow’s dinner. Can’t throw the numbers out, now can we.”

Sherlock made his head thunk onto the desk when he’d disconnected. That was going to take work. But tomorrow was another day. And now it was lunch, and where he met Seb, who’d also eschewed Hall, the middle common room, the junior common room and daylight. Seb was coming up the steps from the underground bar, surrounded by a select group of students, by the look, as Sherlock went to walk down.

“Sherlock Holmes! Cleverest bloke in college. Probably uni.” Seb introduced him.

“Not lunching up top?” Sherlock indicated the Hall in front of them.

“Oh, as I always say, if I want to eat in a dark-panelled poorly lit room frowned down on by a disproving man wearing old-fashioned clothes, I’ll go home for a meal. Besides, I’ll be getting a fair bit of that tomorrow. Big weekend planned. Are you –”

“ _Eating_ , yes.” And Sherlock descended the flight of steps, hoping Seb had caught on. Then it occurred to him he could of course text him and tell him he’d presumably be joining the happy little dinner get-together later.

The beer cellar hadn’t changed of course, but he wasn’t there for the drink and certainly not the food in the cramped, overdecorated place with its alternating pulses of clublike hushed silence and waves of loud, frantic activity. It was one of the quiet stretches, and the student keeping bar dared to look askance at Sherlock when his phone rang. Which of course made Sherlock talk extra loudly in answering it, and especially so when dropping the name of the principal every thirty seconds. Not that this was the man himself, of course, but Sherlock could hear his voice dictating to his PA, who relayed his words and got them yelled louder when she didn’t repeat them verbatim enough. Seemed the prince extended his famed dislike of mobile phones to calling people on them – and didn’t.

Sherlock agreed he hadn’t really mentioned he was in college, that he didn’t know if this news had appeared on the Daily Information Page but he wasn’t heartbroken if it hadn’t, that his family were (seemingly) friends of the new Chancellor, that he himself was supremely uninterested in politics so didn’t care the man had held office under – He paused to listen to the prince’s actual words and the poor woman’s sanitised rendering of their gist on this topic. No; despite his chemistry degrees he wasn’t working for some sort of pesticides or drugs company, rather he was a dilettante who pleased himself in researching and into what the fancy took him and acting as a consultant if the matter were interesting enough and yes he would be very pleased to expound on this at dinner. Tonight. In the principal’s lodgings. He grinned. Some buttons always remained pushable, it seemed.

Soon it was his turn to throw a quelling look on a noisy table of students dispelling the late-afternoon stillness and disrupting his work. Sherlock’s target was the reading area and his quarry its stacks of old _University Gazettes_ and back issues of the student newspapers the _Cherwell and Oxford Student_. Even the college’s Daily Info sheets, JCR newsletters and, oh, that god-awful semi-official college _BroadTalk_ rag – here Sherlock paused to grin, recalling Seb’s idea of starting a less official rival, _High Times_ – were stored here, rather than the old or new library. Sherlock used the PC and visited the college’s Web site and the JCR site and felt more normal, more himself as he skimmed other college’s sites, cross-referencing form and content from myriad places, his brain leaping to make connections, to shape patterns. His eyes flickered as he looked at photographs and skimmed biographies of the governing board, then the tutorial, professorial and research fellows, the lecturers, advisors and the staff, checking publications, citations, awards, accolades…

This what I should have done, should have been doing, he berated himself as he passed to the university web site and studied such annual reports, statistics and figures as were released to the public, then the composition of the twenty-five strong Council and the latest issues which the Congregation had debated. What had Frik been saying, or trying to say about something connected to the press, or journalism? He’d have to ask. But not now. Now he had to change for dinner with the prince. And because he was in good time, there was time enough to pay a visit to the place supposed to be the best place in Oxford for thinking: the college chapel tower, and more specifically its roof.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

“Police,” he announced himself to the couple lounging there. He flashed a warrant card. “Could I ask you to vacate the vicinity, please. Your cooperation is appreciated.” He was even doing thevoice, he realised.

“May we go down onto the chapel roof itself, Detective Inspector Dimmock?” asked the female.

“I’d have to ask you to sign a waiver.” Sherlock looked enquiringly at them, and as he’d expected, they trotted off obligingly. The view from here was good, although not the best in Oxford, but Sherlock ignored it to study the metal chart, a sidereal compass rose showing compass points via position of stars, and there was even a small torch provided to read the marking and navigate and chart the night sky accordingly. The commemorative plaque was small and elliptic, just a date and the initials B&S. There’d been rules about first years needing permission to be on the roof, or signing some book or other, he vaguely remembered. He didn’t recall as they’d never followed any of them. He doubted anyone did. He wallowed in the memory for a moment, letting scenes, flashes really, of that date, that night, and the night before, his meeting Seb, hit him. So many firsts, what happened here just one.

There was a soft noise behind him, and he froze, clutching the metal cylinder to steady himself. “Police,” he called out, about to turn around when a familiar voice answered, “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m _real_ police _and_ fake French police. I win.”

“Lestrade.” Sherlock was glad to see him, glad not be at the mercy of his memories.

“Very smart.” Lestrade gestured at Sherlock’s suit. “Don’t often see you in a tie.”

“You don’t like them either,” retorted Sherlock. “You always look strangled in any press conferences when they make you wear one. Or is that how you look when there are journalists around?”

“’Bout fifty fifty.” Lestrade grinned, and Sherlock was glad to see it, see him, see a piece of London, normal life, here, even if Lestrade was striking a balance between his usual casual off-duty clothes and those possibly expected of a Parisian detective. “Well, I guess you’d have to smarten up here, this place, hey?” Lestrade said.

“Here. This place.” Sherlock’s echo was cut off by the bells, and he indicated to Lestrade to cover his ears before the one on the tower just below sounded. It was lulling, in a way, actually, whereas he’d always found it, the on-the-hour sound, binding. Confining.

“It’s not so bad here,” argued Lestrade. “It’s not like other colleges. I’ve been on those tours. Even did a bike tour.”

“God.” Sherlock slumped down against the balusters, shaking off the memory of Seb having to lead one once, a group of OAP VIP Americans who knew more about the history and culture of the city than he did, forcing Seb to make up an Unknown Oxford tour.

“You can walk on the grass here, for starters.” Seemed Lestrade would be enrolling in college any day now. “Not like the others. And it’s small.”

“'But perfectly formed,'” replied Sherlock as Lestrade sat next to him, the old slogan falling from his tongue, as the 'well-kept secret' phrase had dripped from Seb’s. “Oh. We were well indoctrinated.” Maybe that was how the replacing words in cliché phrases with the word cliché had started?

“And that prince. The principal. Way you lot talked about him I was expecting some toff, some elitist, you know? But I met him today. He came up to me at breakfast and introduced himself. In French.”

“He speaks French?”

“Old-fashioned French, yeah. Sort of literary French.”

“I’m surprised he did. No disrespect, but he’s well, stuck-up, I suppose you’d say.”

“No, he’s not. He’s a snob, yeah, but not stuck-up.”

Sherlock frowned. “There’s a difference?”

“’Course there is. Sometimes I forget how young you are, Sherlock. That you haven’t knocked around as much as me.” Lestrade got out his cigarettes, thankfully not foreign. “You’ve got your patches on, yeah?”

Sherlock checked. “No. Look; nothing up my sleeve. Thanks. Oh.” Lestrade had taken out a hip flask and handed it over. “You’re turning into a student.”

There was a moment of calm, as the fat green and gold of the day gave way to thinner, longer colours and shadows. The sound of someone practicing the piano carried across and up to them.

“So. You’re a princeling now. That’s what his fanboys and girls are called. His acolytes.”

“He works hard for this place. He knows what’s going on. Knew who I was. Am being. Asked about my research. I get the feeling he monitors or controls who can book a room.”

“Maybe. We’re not on that ‘Book A B&B Uni Room’ site. But that would mean he knew I was here.” And didn’t care, until prodded into caring by the chancellor. That would fit.

“You might be surprised. Remember you were younger when you knew him. Not quite as clever.”

“Yes; I was.”

“Okay, not quite so experienced. That suit?”

Sherlock didn’t reply, just turned away from a small group of princelings moving towards the Oblique, no doubt the prettiest sent on escort duty, making a phalanx to bring the honoured guest to pre-dinner drinks.

“What’s up. Something’s bothering you. You might as well tell me.” Lestrade looked hard at him.

“I think,” Sherlock spoke slowly, “I’ll take you up on your offer.”

“Do what.”

“You offered to arrest Sebastian and keep him in a cell for forty-eight hours. To show him the error of his ways.”

“Oh. That.” Lestrade passed over the drink. “On what charge, then?”

“Oh. Being annoying? Being…confusing?”

“He’s that, yeah. But what I said was I’d put him away if he was up to anything. Well, is he?”

“What? You said it yesterday. Playacting. Playing with people. Playing...” When Lestrade just glanced at him, Sherlock looked away.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant I thought he might be playing around and might hurt you. He isn’t. And he won’t, ever. He knows better than that.”

Sherlock took a few seconds, blinking quickly as he amassed this, analysed… “Oh. You…care about me.” He knew he sounded as if Lestrade had contracted a tropical disease. “Me? Why?”

“God knows.” Lestrade finished his cigarette and stubbed it out. On the base of the telescope, which made Sherlock smile. “You’re my mate. I like you. Okay? And you’re not yourself over this. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“You don’t like him. I said you wouldn’t.”

“He makes it hard to like him. All that protective shell, all that arsing around. But he’s got a lot to keep guarded at the moment. It can’t be easy, his ex around, me around. I mean we’re not…anything, but I like her. Yeah, everyone likes her. Got that. Oh, Mrs Hudson likes him, you know.”

“He’s good with women.”

“Yeah, he’s different with blokes. I see that. But in that case, you have to look at his actions, not his behaviour.”

Sherlock wondered whether to accuse Lestrade of watching late-night TV, but couldn’t be bothered.

“How would you describe his actions? I’d say he’s supportive and generous to those people and things he cares about. I mean, look at this telescope thing. This was a gift from him. Not his parents’ gift thing.”

“He can afford it.” Sherlock pursed his lips. “Things…it’s just to buy liking.”

“He doesn’t care what people think! He cares what _you_ think. And he’s not trying to get you to _like_ him; he wants you to _love_ him, you wally.” Lestrade loomed a bit like he was going to shake him. He must have caught Sherlock’s look: he sat back. “Sherlock, he loves you. I dunno what went on when you were kids, and I’m angry and sorry that he turned to Allegra on the rebound and that that hurt her, but it’s always been you for him. And I think, correct me if I’m wrong – you usually do – it’s always been him for you. Even if there was someone else on the rebound too.”

“There was never anyone else. Anyone who mattered. Who meant anything.” He was surprised Lestrade could catch his mutter.

“So you’re crap at this. Just like he is. Pair of you, still mucking around like you’re still teenagers, one minute talking about buying a big house, this week, oh now we’re detectives, what a laugh. Thinking stuff’ll be fun round the clock. Relationships aren’t just racing around having fun, you idiot! They’re sitting down and talking and listening and thinking and doing – they’re hard bloody work!”

“Oh.”

“Looks like we have to have this little talk regularly. Shall we set a date for the next meeting, then?” Lestrade reached out and ruffled Sherlock’s hair, making him scowl and dodge. “And if His Nibs’ parents haven’t told him all this, and it looks they haven’t, want me to have this talk with him too? God. What is it – being posh, or being English, or what? For two clever clogs Oxford grads, the pair of you are –”

“Hey!” Sherlock stood. “And no, a helpful word in his ear about this won’t be necessary. Seb’s learnt this already. He said something similar earlier. Oh, and just exactly how much are you enjoying this?”

Lestrade got up too. “More than you can imagine,” he replied, his face more a smirk than a grin now. “Come on. Dunno where you’re off to all dolled up like that, but you shouldn’t be late.”

He wasn’t, of course. It was only a few minutes’ walk to the principal’s lodgings, where one princeling ushered him in to the entrance hall of the three-story golden-stoned building with its famous crenelated roof and its ground-floor bay windows flanking the portico. A string quartet, wearing black and white to match the chalky looking antique floor, was playing. First-year music students, he judged. Poor sods. He heard the modulated tones of Dr Warwick Clare, the prince himself, and his heart sank. Why had he wanted to come here? As he was led into the drawing room full of worthies: board members and bods from the Mathematical and Physical and Life Sciences Division, people from the Mathematical Institute, and the vice-principal, he saw Seb in their midst, much the tallest amongst them, and remembered.

“Mr Holmes!”

“Sherlock, please, Principal,” he returned, submitting to the hearty handshake, and thinking Lestrade had been right, they’d been younger before, and seen the man differently. Oh, that wasn’t it – he’d aged in the intervening years. Of course. How stupid. And Sherlock was a little glad of it – he’d hated that Arthurian flyaway hair, tousled as if the man had just removed a coif or a crown, and the little beard and moustache. Now the man was clean-shaven, his hair no longer windswept brown layers but silver and swept back to fall into a wave and reach his chin. Sherlock preferred it now to the wannabe medieval knight look – the man’s field was the Romantics, for God’s sake. He had his usual velvet-looking suit on, probably soft corduroy, Sherlock’s more grown-up mind supplied. He wore one of his cravats. Obviously.

Sherlock suddenly remember Seb talking about that cartoon character with his Ascot tie, and couldn’t look across the room because he just knew Seb was thinking about their steampunk costumes with their faux-Victorian faux cravats. The prince’s full, thick lips had thinned a little over the years, but his eyes were just as large and hazel as ever, raking Sherlock. “And I have a great friend of yours here.”

Seb clasped his hand between both of his, stroking a sly little finger over Sherlock’s palm as he did so. He stared deep into Sherlock’s eyes, searching, and the argument of earlier was redundant. Pathetic. Sorry, Seb transmitted.

“Of course. Yes, that’s right. And yes; we’ve caught up, Principal.” He grinned at Seb and caught his answering smile.

“I think you’re all old enough now to call me sir.” The man…wasn’t joking. He introduced Sherlock to the old boys. “Been trying to persuade your chum to play the piano. Seems he doesn’t any longer. Pity.”

“I haven’t played for years.” The way Seb looked at Sherlock as he said that, Sherlock thought he knew when and where Seb had last played. And why he didn’t now. He dropped his glance.

“And do you still play the violin, Sherlock?” questioned Dr Clare.

“Yes. But I don’t have it with me.” He didn’t add that it was in his room. He didn’t want any student acolyte being sent for it. He recognised one female face, currently serving drinks, as one who’d been lying in wait for the important alumnus earlier. “Do these people cook the food too?” he murmured to Seb.

“Mate! Top-class chef, he has. Why d’you think dinner invites are so prized? I was explaining to Sherlock how you weren’t made head of Humanities. Denied the prize,” he said louder, as the principal looked enquiring.

“Ah, yes. And I refused the consolation prize of being fobbed off with a pro-vice-chancellorship, baby-sitting an area of university policy. I could not in all conscience see myself enthusing over libraries and museums or external affairs or personnel.” He shook himself like a wet dog coming out of a stream. “Well. Such is life. Ah! We are honoured by the presence of yet another of your noble kinsmen, our illustrious recipient. And his accompanying person, following in his worthy footsteps. Oh, and his shadow from the fourth estate. Shortly to dog my heels too and hopefully not piss too high up the wall of our beloved alma mater.” Was Sherlock imaging that sly glance his and Seb’s way as these words were intoned?

Chris, besuited and still bespectacled was indeed accompanied by what Sherlock took to be one of his students. And Frik. Really, the whole thing seemed so ludicrous now, Sherlock wanted to smile.

“See? Told you it wouldn’t matter about you just missing that scholarship,” he heard Chris muttering to his poor partner for the evening as they were introduced to the gathering.

“Unlike Chris, who was always making an Exhibition of himself,” commented Seb, handing the girl a drink and making her blush scarlet and trip over a footstool.

“Oh, I was a complete Commoner!” Alli popped in from somewhere.

“Never mind, sweets. Someday your prince will have come,” remarked Seb.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

The girl turned from one to the other, slopping her drink.

“It’s definitely not a genuine Cole, sorry to say, Warwick.” Alli held dusty hands out to the room. “I’ve been inspecting some new paintings Dr Clare has acquired.”

“Very kindly _evaluating_ ,” he corrected, whipping out a handkerchief as big as a pillow case and wiping her hands clean for her before she sullied what Sherlock deduced was another new dress. He determined to ask Seb about her clothing allowance. If such things existed.

“You always had such a good heart and a wonderful eye.” He smiled at her, showing strong-looking but somewhat brown-stained teeth.

Seb’s eyes narrowed, and he gave Sherlock a signal. Sherlock was actually surprised that his mind had retained the meaning over the years: ‘wind up.’

“Oh, sir, being such a Keatist –”

“ _Keatsian_ , Sebastian,” came the insta-correction.

“Right. And a Shelleyite, I wondered if you were involved with that new telly series, New Romantics. Advising, or whatever. It’s a bit racy…”

“That abomination! That travesty! It’s historically inaccurate and morally and artistically bankrupt! The timeline alone –”

“I expect you’ve too busy with NASA,” put in Sherlock.

“ _NASSR_. The North American Society for the Study of Romanticism. Yes, I still co-edit their Romantic Review.”

“And always at the bar too.”

“I take it you mean BARS? The British Association for Romantic Studies? Quite. Founder member, as you know. This year’s conference was held recently in London, the theme ‘Freedom and Conflict.’ An astounding success. The book –”

“But that series! Did you see it, Chris? All those heaving bosoms, tight breeches, shiny boots – like some sort of historical novel!”

“A real bodice ripper. All silly invented bits of language, improbable heroes, fainting heroines… Pathetic.” Sherlock hadn’t seen the series, hadn’t even heard of it. Only trusted in Seb that it existed.

Alli coughed, and intensified the signals she been flashing with her eyes. “Sorry,” she eventually murmured to Warwick.

“Oh, my dear. You are sweet to try and spare an old man’s blushes. And as you are an initiate of the inner circle” – here he turned to the girl with Chris – “you should know my deep, dark secret.”

“No, it’s fine,” replied the girl, almost in tears, her accent thickening.

“No; you are deemed promising, having the potential to shine and hence the polishing.” He indicated the room, the company.

Oh God, thought Sherlock with an edge of savagery. Was this the reason this girl, second year, he guessed, from somewhere near Glasgow, was being subjected to the prince’s attentions? Taken under his wing? He remembered…

“While I myself have a not-inconsiderable bibliography to my name, both as writer and editor, books and journals, including critical works on the major and most influential figures of the period 1770-1848…”

  
Here he stepped aside as if casually, but revealing an array of works on a shelf behind him. “In addition to my writing and presenting documentary features for BBC Radio Four, oh, and being made an honorary member of the RSA. But we are discussing, my dear, departed and much-missed wife, who was a famous and respected scholar of Amatory fiction and indeed, won the Hawthornden Prize –”

“And the James Tait Black Memorial Prize too, wasn’t it, sir?” Seb of course, although Sherlock could have parroted the spiel too.

“– for her flawless and compelling biography of Eliza Haywood, she also wrote much lighter and perhaps in many ways more accessible historical…novels. Romances, one might call them. Under a pen name. In the best tradition of the female writer. And a number of years ago” – Sherlock definitely wasn’t imagining the glare turned to him and Seb this time – “this became more widely known and it has been somewhat of an open secret ever since.”

“It’s wonderful they’re still selling. They’re very good, for the genre,” said Alli, patting the principal’s arm. “They’re instructive, with all the historical events, and so rich in detail about life in the Georgian period.”

“And provided plenty of material for the Oblique library,” said Seb. “I’ve spent many a happy afternoon there with ‘Amii Chase,’ in the bosom of all those _Patriots and Rogues_.”

Sherlock turned away to hide his grin. In doing so he caught the eye of the vice-principal and the nervous old man shot him a strained smile, showing two rows of teeth.

“I was thinking today how I still obey the first rule of Oxford.” Alli sat down to encourage the Principal to do so. “And in doing so of course I always put your books to the front in every bookshop I’m in too, Warwick.”

“I do too! And your late wife’s!” exclaimed Seb. “Even just today I put _His Master’s Vice_ at the front of the shelf in Waterstone’s along the road. Bought a copy too, to donate to the old reading room.”

“That…isn’t one of Anne’s,” murmured Dr Clare, faintly.

“Sure? Oh. My mistake. Still, it looks a corker.”

Frik seemed to be having a choking fit. He left the room, his eyes watering.

“I am dim. Knew I shouldn’t have taken the _plunge_ ,” Seb continued, shaking his head. He shot Sherlock a look from under his lashes. He had long lashes, Sherlock noticed. He wondered if he’d ever mentioned it to Seb. Maybe he should. Then recalled: _plunge_ was one of the purple-prose words they –

“I’m afraid I forget to place my former tutors’ books to the fore. I thought it was perhaps a custom more honoured in the _breach_ than the observance?” He put enough emphasis into _breach_ to get a mutter from Alli, “Boys. Please.”

“Sweets, the principal enjoys the _cut and thrust_ of a good dialogue.”

She stared from one to the other. “You’re not kids anymore, either of you.”

“How very dare you?” returned Seb. “Take that back or I’m telling.”

“Oh, I love that new book series about Lord Byron, _Le Diable Boiteux_!” French wasn’t Chris’s date strong point, and it took Sherlock to figure out what she’d chipped in, in her Scottish accent. “That author has a different name, but they say she’s the same as the one that wrote the eighteenth-century series you’re talking about. I’ve only read the first, but…”

She spilt what was left of her drink down her dress under the weight of the principal’s stare.

“Here.” The principal used his magic handkerchief to blot the stain. “Our Miss Logan must extend her range of reading matter, and so broaden her mind. I shall take it upon myself to pidge her a reading list this very night.”

“Kirsty’s in maths, sir.” Chris was as tomato coloured as the girl.

“And? Attention must always be paid to the whole person. We see great potential in Miss Logan, do we not?” This to the room at large, and most of the board members nodded as did all the division people and the vice-principal, obediently.

“Ah. I believe dinner is served. Now, let’s arrange…”

In the hubbub of movement and noise which followed, Seb said to Kirsty, “Don’t let him bother you. He’s only here as he turned the copyright from his works and his wife’s novels over to the coll years ago, so they have no choice but to let him play with them. Gave him this sandbox and everything.”

“I just feel so lost. I mean, dinner…” She raised big brown eyes to Chris.

“At the table, just copy what Alli does, what knives and forks she uses,” he replied. Sherlock suddenly realised where the girl’s new dress had probably come from.

“Can’t I copy you?” she asked, puzzled.

“Oh, yeah. Just Alli used to do this thing of taking people under her wing. That’s how I…” He shut up and marched her off.

“Interesting about the copyright, if it’s true,” muttered Frik, prior to being told to lead some old woman through the hall to the long black-beamed, painting-decked dining room. Whatever Frik meant, it was probably more interesting than the table talk. The holders of the B&S-sponsored college exhibition and scholarship in maths were forced to give an account of themselves. News about the college, the doings of the board and the university was discussed, interspersed with light comments about the new Applied Maths chair and having to ‘sex proceedings up to titillate their friend from Fleet Street.’ Even Sherlock knew tabloids and broadsheets had moved to Wapping in the late ’80s.

“How’s your Big Willy? Anyone polishing it this year?” Seb enquired suddenly with a fatuous smile and managed to kick Sherlock, seated opposite him, under the long, wide table.

“Oh yes! Sadly not a patch on our very dear Allegra’s testudinal care and prowess, but… And does our guest know of some of our more long-standing college and indeed university traditions?”

Sherlock tried to remember if the principal had always spoken about people in the third person or if this was a recent thing. On the whole he thought it was a long-standing thing in itself. Things seemed more relaxed by the time the second course was served, and he found himself joining in descriptions of the May Day celebrations, the tortoise fair, the quad summer play, the rivalry with the colls next door, the rivalry with the other place and grinning at the prince’s exhortations that they wouldn’t appear depicted in the _Sunday Times_ as some sleepy backwater.

“Brigadoon, more like,” coughed Seb, raising an immoderate giggle from Kirsty and an apology as she dropped her spoon into her dessert and splattered him.

“From gypsy tart to Eton mess,” he commented, shushing the girl’s horrified apologies, using his own hanky to mop up.

“Don’t be so beastly,” Alli said suddenly, her volume loud in the polite chatter.

“Sweets, I’m sure Ms Logan knows I’m funning,” replied Seb, regarding her.

“No; about college, I mean. You’re always so…I don’t know, but you are, and you were lucky to be here, that there was a place for you. People like you. Like us.” She finished her glass, and Seb examined the label of the wine bottle, checking its strength.

“I mean, look at us.” She waggled her empty glass. “Sherlock, too clever by half for college. University, really. And you, too dim for academic stuff which had nothing to do with what you’d be doing for a living, but was a necessary step.”

“Hey! Don’t go spreading vicious truth around!”

“And Chris –”

“Oh God.” He tried to hide his red face behind his spoon.

“Genius but _so_ awkward. Clueless. Couldn’t manage the real world. Couldn’t even speak to people.”

“And you?” piped up Kirsty. Was that a glare?

“Me? Ha! I didn’t know if I was Lady Bountiful or Mother Earth, running everything, managing everything, wanting everything perfect and everyone happy.”

“You did a great job,” muttered Chris, and the principal clapped loudly. “Hear, hear.”

“And Rissa.” Alli ignored them. “Treating the place like a catwalk. Only liked lectures and tutorials to show off her new designs. Or Bill – already in the House of Commons, not really here. Chessy, using the place as a marriage mart. Rupert, Tilly; we were all incredibly screwed up and bloody annoying!” She took up Seb’s glass and finished it for him.

“And yet you all not only survived, but flourished here. Under my wardship. My tutelage.” The principal was impervious to drama or scenes. No; enjoyed them. “You know, benign neglect is as much a part of pastoral care as is strict monitoring. What they call micromanaging these days. I believe in letting youth run free, have its head. It shakes itself into place and finds its own path. Eventually.”

Sherlock was as silent as the rest, considering. True; they’d all been, well, _different_ people who seemed to get on and had had an amazing amount of freedom, with no sanctions, but that was because no one really knew the half of it, wasn’t it?

“There has to be a place like this,” Ali finished, patting the principal and vice-principal in approval.

“Well, one hopes, but…”

“What?” She looked alarmed as the anxious-looking elderly man, the vice-principal spoke.

“Oh, nothing. Just…changes, and…”

“I suggest you speak freely in front of our resident hack,” said the principal, with a smirk at Frik. “I’m sure he’s done his spadework, dug up all he needs for his –”

“Don’t call me a muck raker. Don’t impugn my work. Sir.” Frik’s voice was quiet and even. “I offered to let you see copy. My word stands. Trust it, and I’ll trust you.” His eerie ice-blue eyes met penetrating hazel ones, and the principal was the first to look away.

The silence was filled by a servitor removing the dessert plates.

“Very well,” said Dr Clare, swirling his wine around inside the glass in a way that Sherlock knew would set Seb’s teeth on edge. “The removal of the capped tuition fees and review of higher education funding - a weasle word for cutbacks - has led to moves towards a ‘harmonisation’ of practices university-wide which will put an end to the more federal freedom we enjoy. University, even these dreaming spires, was accessible, affordable under the capped fees, and I have always chosen students on the basis of their promise and potential. People who enriched the life and soul of our college in some way. Academically” – he raised his glass to Sherlock and Chris – “artistically” – to Kirsty – “and to the spirit and yes, even the coffers, of the second home they loved here in William College.” He saluted Seb and patted Alli’s leg.

“It’s just from now universities and colleges will have to meet admission quotas if they wish to apply for the extra funding available, funding which we really in fact do need.” The vice-principal spoke up. “Places will have to meet targets.”

“Box ticking!” cried Dr Clare, his rich tones ringing around the room.

“ _Quotas_. Such as A-level results, overseas students, state school students, with no possibility of receiving overspend funds if targets are not met.”

“And this will be a place in which I can no longer use my considerable skills to create a perfectly balanced society of not only the divisions but wealthier students with those who will bloom but who need support: financial, social, what have you. A blend of brains and research potential with money, savoir fair, beauty and charm to make a glorious home for us all here, and let the chips fall where they may. Bugger counting out an exact number of 'each sort' of preapproved student. Double bugger counting out an exact number of firsts and upper seconds so all the colleges align!”

“It sounds awful!” said Alli. “Like a factory.”

“Oh, and like a theme park. We have to maximise our charm and historical potential – is that what they call Disneyfication? – to attract conferences. Summer schools. Film units. Sacrifice more of the buildings to make rooms to rent.” He shuddered. Maybe he’d grown more theatrical with age, Sherlock judged, but he pulled it off.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

“What’s your alternative? Your solution?” Seb pulled Alli’s chair back a little, then sat forward, towards Dr Clare. “Without reforms it will be difficult to raise money that the university needs to advance, particularly with respect to students from less advantaged backgrounds.”

“I have a radical solution to propose, one so sweeping as to stir the very shades of our founder, and I’m told it has, eh, Dr Parrington Andrews? I say, why one tuition fee set per establishment? I argue for different fees for not only different colleges, but for different Divisions, for different courses, and for different students! We are both a public and a private university, as I’m sure you know. I suggest we renounce our public status and the insalubrious, soul-crushing grubbing for money, free ourselves from the tyranny of the higher education funding council and their positively discriminatory, overcompensatory targets. Instead we rejoice in our private, self-governing side. Do you know what percentage of our income comes from government bodies?”

“Yes; thirty-five.”

Sherlock felt rather aroused by Seb’s financial acumen.

“With that from fees around twenty-nine percent and the rest from research grants, endowments and investments. Increase those two categories, say I! Do you know how higher education works in the US?”

Seb laughed. “I do actually. Being half American.”

“Indeed. That blend of the old and the new… So, you asked for my solution, and thus I deliver it. More freedom for each college, more discretion for its head would mean, for example, young Sherlock could underwrite his own doctorate, covering the fee the good Dr Ward could reasonably expect for supervision of his work. This would mean no soul-searing bowing down to industry for our scientist, and ease Dr Ward into his retirement that way.” He threw his head back, challengingly. Sherlock knew there was more to come.

“That would require immense changes to the thinking of the university,” commented Frik, who’d been taking notes. “For the head of each self-governing college, each division, each department…”

“Yes,” agreed Seb. “And obviously the chancellor is just a figurehead, but the vice-chancellor would have to persuade the council, and I can’t see him –”

“Doing _anything_ involving individual creativity and freedom!” Again the rafters echoed. “Which is why _I’m_ standing for election.”

The silence rang, heavy and black, and then Alli clapped her hands in joy, exclaiming in glee, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Wow. That’s –” Seb gave in.

“Come. I’m overwhelming my party, and providing a scoop for our South African friend, when I’d rather hear more of his fascinating views on the National’s new production of _Disgrace_ , finish the conversation we began over the vile coffee in the café. Quite the Coetzee expert, our once or twice-named Fredrik. It is a pity he didn’t study literature, as he preferred. Still, literature’s loss is the media’s gain, one supposes? The night is too dulcet to waste. I propose we adjourn to my garden, where I shall expound more on my devious mechanisms. And I wish to show off my glorious Eden to you all. It’s looking most remarkable this year.”

“Should be, all the pressganged labour he has working on it,” muttered Seb to Kirsty and Chris as the principal shooed them all out, taking a moment to smooth a shawl around Alli’s shoulders as they walked through the hall to the garden door, saying good-night to those board and division members up beyond their bedtime, and the dismissed scholarship and exhibition holders as they did so.

“We all kind of thought he must be up to something big, after being shot down for head of Division,” whispered Kirsty, who’d obviously imprinted on Seb. “He’s been striding around, moaning about how this, that and the other isn’t up to scratch.”

“Oh! Frik’s short for Fredrik! He’s called…Fredrik Fredrik?” exclaimed Chris.

“Just Fredrik. No one knows if it’s his first or surname. Or nickname. Or alias. No one dares ask, Chris,” said Seb. “You’re quiet, Sherlock. The bosom of nature smothering you?”

It was pretty, even in the moonlight, with carefully placed flambeaux delineating a space for strolling, clever uplighting picking out the statues, and drinks being served at a table with a firepit.

“Oh, I’m just wondering if you got your credit cards back from your ex-wife,” answered Sherlock. “Because I think she’ll be donating to his campaign any minute now.”

“Good Lord.” Seb hurried to catch up and take Alli’s arm as she walked.

Sherlock also wondered if Frik would be signing up to study for his Masters here. Seemed he was just as hypnotised by Dr Clare as everyone else was.

“Is my garden as you remembered it, Holmes the Younger?” called Dr Clare, beckoning Sherlock over. “And here’s something you’ll be interested in. The both of you.”

Sherlock looked at the…small headstone? “ _Wilhelm?_ ” he questioned.

“The sheep you kindly put to pasture here in my garden, anonymously of course, to solve my _Euphorbiaceae_ problem! I’m afraid this clover patch is quite spreading from the wall to the beds without Wilhelm’s more than kind grazing of it. I’m resisting getting another. But perhaps a goat…”

So that was had happened to that bloody sheep! Sherlock couldn’t help laughing. Seb and even Alli joined in. “Wilhelm?” Sherlock asked again.

“ _Mea culpa_. Something about his moustache. And he did rather favour vigorous and rapid expansion here. Doubled in size in a week.” He ushered them all to the table and leaned in a window to start choral music playing, a CD this time, a member of whose chorus was the late lamented Mrs Clare, he explained, throwing back his head as he described her passion for and knowledge of secular cantatas.

Kirsty rubbed her hands up and down her arms, and a slight cough from Alli had Chris trying to drape his jacket about the girl’s shoulders. He succeeded eventually.

“Would you indulge an old man, my dear?” Dr Clare gestured at the teapot, and Seb’s, “Not as far as you’d like, she won’t,” were covered by protests that the principal was in no way old.

“Because to be VC you’d have to be able to serve the full period before reaching retirement age, wouldn’t you?” asked Seb, grimacing at the herbal concoction. “It’s what, a maximum of ten years?”

“I realise of course VCs are usually more business-orientated creatures, our current ornament being a horse of that, erm, cliché, but why not an academic nurtured on and sustained by the life blood of the university? One who has in return given much of his life and worldly goods – such as they are – over to her and wishes nothing more than to do so until the very end?”

“Dr Clive is standing again, I heard. You’d be up against him. Shut it, Sebastian. No one thinks you’re funny,” said Alli.

“Lot of muttering about him,” Frik threw in.

“In the butteries?” asked Seb. “Because muttering in the butteries is the very worst kind. Worse than hubbub in Hall, even.” He nodded, his mouth a thin, wry twist.

“He’s seen as somewhat of a, well, traitor, although I hate to say it,” said Professor Prior, casting an anxious glance around the garden as if for lurking spies.

“You’re a very loyal helpmeet.” The principal threw an arm around his VP’s shoulders, and the elderly man blushed. “I couldn’t have done such a good job over the years, wouldn’t have dared get away to so many conferences and meetings, for one thing, without you and Frances by my side. On my side, of course, and everything safe in your capable hands. Ah, Frances. Shame she never manages to get to these little soirees, though. With such staunch aid, I’ve never needed a senior tutor to manage admissions and graduates, much less strategic planning and liaison with the academic side, you know,” he said to the group.

No; that poor old bugger does as he’s told, thought Sherlock, supressing a smirk. But credit where it was due – the prince was seemingly very aware of student performance…

“I heard something about Clive planning changes to the council?” asked Alli.

“Oh, that beyond-the-pale little bean counter boasts he’s going to drag it into the twentieth century.” Dr Clare blew smoke into the semi-dark.

“Twenty-first, surely?” asked Chris, maths geek.

“Is it really?” Dr Clare seemed uninterested. “Oh yes, the little worm – not even an Oxford man, you know – wants to overthrow our hallowed tradition of complete self-governance, by introducing members external to the university to council! The cad wishes to separate the academic and financial boards and have the latter outsourced, overseen! We’ll be like any other university!”

“Except the other place,” pointed out Sherlock.

“But I ask you! Outside opinion on the university's financial and academic decisions. It cannot be countenanced. The congregation and council will be emasculated. The university’s academic reputation will be diluted. And with a substance far less innocuous than water. No wonder the ghost has been walking. Turning in his grave.”

“And who would have executive decision? The chancellor, i.e. the VC himself?”

“Precisely, Sebastian. Well, we shall meet upon the hustings, or rather the congregation.”

Sherlock couldn’t see the university’s parliament of dons voting for either proposal, and saw Seb couldn’t either.

“Well, anything we can do to help, count us in,” said Alli. Dr Clare threw an arm around her and gave a wistful smile.

“My dear, it’s wonderful you and Sebastian are still or are once again so close. You really are the most marvellous couple. We were devastated beyond all reason to hear about your separation.”

“ _Divorce_ ,” corrected Sherlock, because…Seb didn’t.

“Particularly as the wedding was such a joyous occasion,” chipped in Professor Prior. “I truly believe it was one of the happiest celebrations ever in the chapel.” He nodded, pursed-lipped and prim and then stared at Sherlock pushing noisily to his feet. Sherlock had gone icy cold. Did the old idiot mean that Seb and Alli had married here? His wild grab for support made the lantern shake. Seb got to his feet and steadied it. He put a hand on Sherlock’s back, unseen by the seated group, and rubbed. He looked over at Alli, and Sherlock watched unbelieving as he made a signal to her, one Sherlock knew: ‘This is hell on wheels – a tenner if you get me out of it.’ Oh. So they –

“Well, I’m going to call it a night. And a most enjoyable, beautiful one too.” Alli stood, folding the shawl onto the back of her chair.

“I have to go,” Sherlock announced, blunt, uncaring.

“Sorry to break the party up at the same time, but we have a big day tomorrow.” Chris sounded like he was reciting a lesson. Probably was. He pulled Kirsty’s chair back, a little too violently, but caught her as she tipped out.

“Please finish your tea!” Dr Clare held up his hands in rueful shame. “It’s a superstition of mine about not leaving cups half drunk. Indulge a possible vice-chancellor in this.”

There was a flurry and a squawk of good-byes and exhortations to them to forget they’d seen the ‘secret’ sliding section of the high stone wall, which opened to leave them half-way along the path separating the principal’s Eden from the gardens.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say, _well_ ,” said Seb as they walked a few paces in silence, Sherlock striding off in front.

“Yeah, well. Frik and I had better walk Kirsty to her staircase,” said Chris.

“Are you sure?”

Sherlock didn’t envy Alli trying to communicate with a flick of her eyes that wouldn’t Chris prefer to take Kirsty alone?

“Yeah. Loads of crap to get through before the inauguration. Fill me in tomorrow?” And with hugs and pats on the back the trio left, Frik still shaking his head and rolling his eyes as he walked behind.

“Sebastian, please call Lestrade to meet me at the porters’ lodge, walk me back.” Alli handed him her phone. “You know I can’t see that well in this light to press the buttons.”

“Sure? Because we’ll… Sure.”

He looked as Alli grabbed Sherlock and pulled him on ahead along the gravel path separating the Old Quad from the Library Quad. “I, well the both of us owe you an apology,” she began. Sherlock looked down at her, his face cool. “For our behaviour.” He couldn’t stop himself throwing a furious, agonised glance over at the tall figure a few metres behind, hunched over the phone. Alli grabbed him. “No – not… Of course not. I mean all this ‘my wife next door,’ ‘will they, won’t they’ crap. We had no right. I had no right, and it hurt you, I think. I know. Please don’t read anything into it. I wouldn’t… I would never… Oh God. I mean as if I could. As if _anyone_ could.”

She sighed. “It’s this place. But that’s no excuse for behaving like a wanker.”

And that was so very her Sherlock smiled.

“I don’t have a clue what’s going on. Do you?”

“Not…exactly,” he was forced to reply. Seb caught them up as they skirted the Old Quad. He looked from one to the other enquiringly, but didn’t say anything, just walked beside Sherlock, hands in his pockets.

“That tea was terrible,” commented Alli. “It actually had the same taste as the soup. Maybe Warwick does get students to cater now. Cutbacks, don’t you know.”

“Was the painting really a fake?” asked Seb, doing his usual out-of-the-blue change of topic.

“Oh yes. And the Ingres. But I thought I’d keep _that_ news for another time,” replied Alli. “One doesn’t want to ruin the host’s evening completely. Well, I know you two don’t mind, but…”

Even Sherlock laughed. He waited under the archway whilst Seb presumably handed her over, like a parcel, to a waiting Lestrade in the street. He looked around, letting his gaze rove over the tops of the trees and the buildings’ roofs, tracing the darker shapes they made against the silver black of the night, feeling, well, not angry, not concerned, not…anything really. Which he didn’t quite understand. He should have been angry about what he’d learnt. Demanding to know why Seb or Alli had never mentioned the place they’d got married, but he wasn’t. Just as Seb wasn’t falling over himself to explain and soothe.

His phone pipped a text, and he’d just read, _Sherlock Holmes, fancy a fuck? SW_ when he saw the ghost


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

Texting back _ghst wllm chasng_ Sherlock hurled himself across the quad back towards the lodgings and the white shape on their roof. He couldn’t tilt his head back enough to see it as he threw himself forwards, but didn’t stop, just leapt upwards to grab the drainpipe of the admin office and shin up. There was ivy to grip and the old bricks had crumbled away in places, making footholds.

From the narrow ledge of pointed roof there it was easy enough to scramble to the first crenulation of the lodgings. It was smaller than he might have imaged, if he’d ever thought about it, and he grabbed the fat square clock with its weathervane to steady himself. His phone beeped, but he ignored it. Was that something white and shimmery, at the other end of the roof? The night was dark, and he didn’t know the composition of the roof surface, so stuck to the crenulations, stepping up, then down, placing his feet precisely on each narrow mini turret. There was nothing there! He stared around, ignoring the shouting from the quad, and thought he glimpsed something on the chapel roof, across the arch. He sat and dangled his legs over the end of the battlements, then dropped down to the top of the creeper-covered archway, trusting the stems would hold his weight. It, whatever it was, blew past him, beyond him, past the corner of his eye, and when he turned, he almost couldn’t see it. But he thought he saw it not to the left, on the chapel, but straight ahead, beyond?

A heave had him on the chapel roof, and it only took a minute to run along that and climb over, onto the offices. He almost slipped as he scaled the Old Library roof. It was very old, one of the most ancient buildings, and the roof neglected, broken slates and lumps of wood. The bursary was in better repair, although it was hard to slide down its wall, especially with his name being yelled from God knew where.

“Sherlock! Stop! What the fuck?” Seb of course, somewhere behind him on the path as Sherlock ran alongside the gardens to the Garden Meadow, stumbling as he crossed the grass, damper and clingy here, near the…water!

“Lord William!” he cried over his shoulder, still chasing the elusive sheen, the shimmer of pearl now floating above the water. And so of course he pursued it, slipping down the bank, banging into a tree, then half diving, half jumping into the river. It was deeper than he expected, faster-flowing too, and he remembered the Garden Meadow was a flood-meadow, only of course not called such in this hateful place, where nothing went by its true name and… Nothing. He could see nothing. His clothes dragged him down, and a floating tree branch struck him. He turned to wade to the bank and slipped, going under again.

There came a splash and more splashes and ripples becoming rings, and Seb was there, dragging at him, pulling at him, heaving him, sort of swimming, sort of striking the water. He hauled Sherlock up the bank to the tree line and dropped him to the ground.

“The fuck?” he yelled, shaking like a dog in out of the rain, and pulling at his wet clothes.

“Ghost.” Sherlock started shivering, his teeth chattering. Strange. It wasn’t that cold.

“You fucking twat!” Seb heaved himself to his feet, grabbing at a slim tree trunk to help. “What the hell were –”

“I saw the ghost. At least I think… I don’t know.” Sherlock tried to stand and found it hard.

“You should have bloody waited for me!” Seb crowded him, shouting. “What did we agree?”

Sherlock stared back, baffled.

“To tell me things! Not to leave me in the dark! Not to change people’s cover stories without telling me! Not to go off alone and get…” He grabbed a handful of his hair and squeezed it out of his face, his eyes furious.

“ _Hurt?_ What? I’m fine! I’ve fallen into the Thames before, you know.”

“So we have an agreement, and at the first sign of whatever it was, you ignore it and go and do your own thing, leaping from rooftop to rooftop like some sort of Batman. That’s really great.” Seb walked a few paces, squelching, and came back. Sherlock understood how angry Seb was: he hadn’t gone for a cheap pun there.

“Seems to me there’s a few things you have to tell me too.” Sherlock spoke slowly, softly. Deliberately. “Were you ever going to mention you were married here? In college, where we met?”

“It’s where Alli and I met too. I didn’t…I don’t… _Oh hell._ Yes; I should have mentioned it. I wanted to. Never found the right – Is that what this is about? Revenge? Attention seeking?”

“You’re the twat. If you even ask a thing like that.” He brushed past Seb, made for the path.

“Sherlock! Do you understand how scared I was? Seeing you doing that?” Seb made a wild gesture at the buildings in the distance and the river behind him.

“It’s what I do! There was no problem, no danger…” He shrugged.

“And how often have you been hurt, during a case, or a chase or whatever?”

Sherlock was silent. Seb made it to the path. “Well. Time, place, etc. Let’s find the nurse.”

 _“Nurse?_ What for? Oh, God. Why not straight to hospital, get our stomachs pumped of the nasty water? Ask for a pleural fluid analysis?” He started to walk.

“Are you always so unpleasant, on a case?”

“I don’t know. Are you always such a wimp? I almost wish John –”

“What. Say it. I dare you.”

“Just that John doesn’t behave like this.”

“Probably because he’s not in love with you and not scared to death he’ll lose you again, because he can’t survive the hell of living without you.” It was Seb’s turn to push past him, and hurry into the Far Quad, and presumably his room. Idiot.

Sherlock amused himself following the damp footsteps trail, slopping along in Seb’s footfalls. He paused at some weird singing noise near the Oblique: oh, some important date in the college next door, to be celebrated by some offensive song or other at William College’s expense. _God._ Seb thought up much ruder ditties, and on the spur of the moment. Pity he was such a… Well. A whatever he was. Not a wimp. That hadn’t been fair. He’d proven his courage time and time again in his business dealings, and the way he’d cleaned up the mess at Shad Sanderson Sherlock had unwittingly exposed. And in taking Sherlock in when Sherlock was wanted by underworld criminals, providing bodyguards and working alongside him to crack the drugs ring.

Oh all right, he was braver than Sherlock in some ways, facing his feelings and hopes, and daring to articulate them. He was…confusing. Annoying. Sherlock towelled off in his room, resolutely not thinking of the vanishing ghost, the phantom that wasn’t, and thinking instead about some of the incidents he’d been through with Seb. Oh God. That time he’d been angry at Sherlock before, Sherlock had said he’d include Seb from now on.

He found his phone in his hand and texted, _I’m sorry. I’m a twat. SH_

 _Thanks. No argument here. SW_ came back quickly. He pictured Seb pacing, twirling his phone, wondering whether to call… No. Seb did things, not agonised over them.

 _Told you I was bad at this._ He scowled as he pressed Send.

 _You could try harder._ Seb was a quick texter.

 _You could_ – He thought of all the things he could say. Didn’t. Sent it as it was.

_Yes, I could. Tell me something._

_What._ He threw himself on the bed, grinning. Imagined Seb a few floors up on his.

_How do you feel about me?_

_What?_

_What do you think of me?_

_You’ve got great eyelashes. I was thinking that earlier._

_Eylashs?_ Seb misspelt in his haste.

_Yes. They’re long and curled at the ends. Very pretty._

_Mate, I use eyelash curlers. And I love you._

_I know._ Sherlock laughed. _People keep telling me._

_I keep telling you. I wish you’d tell me. How you feel, I mean._

_Hang on._ Sherlock got up, and rummaged about for something. Seb did deserve…more. He found a kohl pencil and wrote on his chest, Seb-style. He outlined his eyes and then smoothed tinted lip balm over his lips.

_I’ll tell you._

_When._

_Soon. Now. If you open the door._ He’d reached the top floor and lounged against the door frame. Seb opened it, saw him, and his face broke into the biggest smile Sherlock had ever seen on anyone. It looked like the sun had come out.

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“'If You Find Yourself Caught in Love,'” said Sherlock, loosening his shirt to let Seb read the three words written there. Seb’s gaze flickered downwards and back up, to stare deep into Sherlock’s eyes. His lips were twisted into a full smile.

“'Say a prayer to the man above.”' There was a husky note in his voice. “Sherlock, is that…eyeliner…and lip gloss?” Seb ran a finger over Sherlock’s lower lip, then sucked the finger into his mouth appreciatively.

“It’s makeup. I’m here for the makeup sex.”

Seb laughed until he doubled over. “You’d better come in, then.”

“And I’m here. That means I get to screw you.”

“Definitely come in, then.” Seb’s face still glowed, lit up from within. “I should change. Striped boarding school pyjama trews aren’t really the clothes for the occasion. Under the circs.”

“Oh, but they are. Get over here.” Sherlock liked Seb’s chest. It was broad and masculine but not too furry. He felt it and liked the feel too. “Do you…”

“Wax? A bit. Just because it’s easier for sports. And makes the pecs stand out more.” He was shut up by Sherlock’s mouth hard against his, demanding and taking. Sherlock backed him over to the window seat but grabbed at him when the edge of the cushioned seat hit the back of his knees. He turned Seb around and nudged him to lean up on the padded banquette. Seb automatically fell forward, his forehead resting on the stained glass of the arched pane and his hands grabbing the edge of the recess each side.

“Just a quickie, then we’ll really start,” whispered Sherlock, pulling Seb’s faded pyjama bottoms to his knees and widening his stance to the extent of the loose elastic.

“Mate.” Seb glanced over his shoulder. “That ghost, whatever it was. Did it perform some sort of mystical body swap on us?”

“Shut up, Sebastian Wilkes. I wanted to bend you over and screw you all evening. At that horrendous gate-legged refectory dinner table, mainly." He was aware he was talking about more than sex, revealing his need to claim his relationship with this man. He knew Seb realised it too. Words. For what? "Any objections?” He took a sachet of lube from his pocket and ripped it open with one hand and his teeth, not stopping fondling Seb.

“No argument here.” Seb understood both text and intent. Always had. He half turned at the noise of Sherlock’s zip. “Ohhh. In like Flynn? Like it.”

“Me too. Now belt up, Olivia.” Then there were no more wisecracks, no more apologies, no need for words at all, just Seb’s moan of pleasure at Sherlock penetrating him and Sherlock’s grunt of satisfaction at the same. “Tight,” gasped Sherlock, leaning forwards to push deeper, staking his claim.

“Been a few days. You know.” Seb’s knuckles paled as they tried to grip the stonework harder.

“And you haven’t…”

“Enjoyed any me time? No. Will now.”

“No. Not yet.” Sherlock pushed Seb’s hand away from his cock. “I want to play with you after.”

“God. _Please._ ”

Sherlock had angled forwards to reach, and his words came close to Seb’s ear. He could smell the Isis damp of his hair and it made him smile into Seb’s neck, because his was the same. He stroked up a hand to tweak tightly at a nipple, making Seb gasp and clench around him. He trailed his other hand down to stroke very softly, featherlight touches at Seb’s balls, and bit down at the junction of Seb’s neck and shoulder. The noise Seb gave, a cross between a squeal and a groan, especially as Sherlock knocked with his hips harder and deeper, was one he would be embarrassed about.

“You like it hard. It makes you come. But not yet.” Sherlock tried to make himself go easy, restrict himself to shallow strokes, but he couldn’t. He slammed in deep, pounding and felt the familiar electric curl start low within him and it only took a few strokes before he lost all attempt at rhythm and bucked frantically into hot, tight perfection. He tried not to collapse too much on Seb, just slotted his hands over Seb’s on the edges of the recess and leaned into him, pressing him more fully against the glass, making him, making them both, part of the living colours of the pane and the blue of the night.

When he could, he moved back, and tapped first one of Seb’s legs then the other, to get him to lift up for Sherlock to remove his pyjama trousers. Sherlock dabbed at himself, then Seb before helping a wobbly Seb off the window seat. He wasn’t much steadier himself. “Bedroom?”

With typical university layout it was beyond the study/formal room. Sherlock yanked the top covers off and nudged Seb to lie down. “Finally,” breathed Seb as Sherlock stripped. He came to lie next to Seb and positioned first Seb mostly on his side with the leg nearest Sherlock bent up, then mirrored this position, hooking his angled leg over Seb’s. This was the perfect arrangement for him to reach down slightly and work Seb’s still extravagantly hard cock, smoothing long, hard strokes over the length, playing with the shiny head, shaping it more bulbous as he did so.

“ _Belllle!_ ” came Seb’s half-delighted, half-tantalised moan, his head on the pillow next to Sherlock’s. He brought his left hand up and unsteadily cupped Sherlock’s face.

“We’ll need lube. Which is your sex drawer here?” said Sherlock, and Seb twisted away to grab a handful of things and drop them into the space between their upper bodies. “Resume the position. Wait. What’s this? For ‘retard’?” You’re not dim. Don’t let anyone tell you that.”

“Hey, they call it challenged, these days.”

“Well, you’re definitely special.” And they both grinned at the typically them truth-in-joke statement.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

“It’s like delay spray. In gel form.”

“Excellent.” Sherlock slicked up and worked his hand up and down again, sniffing curiously at the sharp odour. “I want to play for ages.” He enjoyed the wet noises and the huge hard-over-soft feel and the sight of the engorged head. He left his other hand curled under his head.

“What can I do?” Seb was speaking in gasps again, his head close to Sherlock’s, his arm around him.

“Play too. I love having my arse stuffed.”

“Oh. And ah…got something. Close your eyes a second. How’s that?” he asked a minute later after some wriggling, and Sherlock stopped his rhythmic toying with Seb’s prick to press against the unusual feel as Seb stroked his hole.

“Finger cots. Finger condoms, they call them here. For that delightfully pervy prostate exam feel.”

“You and your sexy nurse fantasies.” Sherlock rubbed against the slip and slide of the lubricated rubber.

“I got flavoured dental dams too. Ohhhh… Wow. Because of mathlete escort. Explain later.” Seb couldn’t be coherent with Sherlock’s play.

“Jesus!” Sherlock flinched away, pushed back.

“It’s only three. You’ve taken bigger. You love it, you slut.” Seb stretched up and kissed the underside of Sherlock’s chin. “One day I will fist you.”

“Not if I fi –” He was shrugging with laughter too much to go on. As much as he enjoyed looking at Seb’s face reacting to the pleasure Sherlock’s long, loving strokes were bringing, he closed his eyes to savour the stretch at his hole. He processed the squelch of the rubber, then flesh against flesh – the finger condoms evidently weren’t very long. “Ohhhh.” Seb was rubbing the pads of two fingers against that spot. “Prostate.”

“I know. I remember.”

He loved Seb’s crooked grin and hooded eyes. Sherlock twisted his hand as he wanked Seb, stretching the elastic band of tissue thin to pull up the foreskin, elongating it even more and rubbing it with his thumb in tiny circles.

“Ohhhh. Frenelum.”

“I know. I remember.”

“Love it.” The exclamation came out on a sigh. The next minute was a seamless mutual loop of stimulus by one leading to response of the other which in turn led to more pleasuring, their gasps and moans sighing out, the fingers of their free hands touching, clasping, releasing.

Sherlock shifted his head and heard a rustle under the pillow. He suddenly realised he could smell sweet, synthetic flavours. “Mate. Is this what I think it is? Really.” He stopped his play and hooked his fingers to rustle free a white paper bag. He winkled out the first sweet he found. A huge white mass, the size and shape of a golfball.

“Not just any sweet. It’s a whopper gobstopper. Biggest there is in Oxford.” Seb nodded in satisfaction and stilled his hand too.

“Not that thing where you think you can tell what colour each layer is by taste.” Sherlock shook his head but flicked the hard ball into his mouth, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked.

“Fuck.”

Sherlock inclined his head, and Seb closed the gap, for Sherlock to seal his mouth over Seb’s and transfer the sweet to his mouth. He left his mouth there, so they were sucking, licking, kissing and nibbling the sweetness and each other, riding the rush from the wash of sugar and each other, occasionally pulling away to lick the sugary and fruit-flavoured saliva which overspilt onto the other’s chin. Seb moaned into his mouth as their tongues met and smoothed over the ball.

Seb mouthed words against Sherlock’s lips, and Sherlock reciprocated, making Seb smile and release so much liquid Sherlock eventually moved away, watching Seb suck.

“Why?” he asked, smiling too.

Seb indicated he wanted to transfer the sweet to him.

“There was a new guard of escorts, sent for me. Not top totty, not dolly-birds: next generation market makers. Practicing their schmoozing over vanilla tea at yes, the place with the tablecloths, plus on-the-ball questions about the bank and market trends and analysis and career opportunities. Ghastly. I tried to ditch them by shopping. No good. Followed me to the bookshop, despite my purchases. Ye old sweete shoppe too. Lost ’em at the sex shop. Suppose I’ve got a reputation now.”

Sherlock poked the now-smaller gobstopper into Seb’s mouth. “Richly deserved,” he commented, swallowing a mouthful of lavender-flavoured saliva. He received the sweet back so Seb could quip, “God, hope so.”

Sherlock spat the sweet back into the paper bag.

“Jaw aching?”

“Yes, still from last night.”

Seb lowered his gaze, his long eyelashes shuttering his eyes.

“Come here.” Sherlock rubbed his nose against Seb’s.

“I love you,” Seb whispered.

“I know. And I’m pleased.” It was the best he could do out loud. “Come on. I’ll get you off.”

“Better than any candy.” Seb fingered him again, pushing in hard and deep. “That’s four. I love stuffing your arse.”

“I know that too.” Sherlock thrilled to the hard in-and-out rhythm. “Christ, Seb, I’m getting hard again. I’ll be able to fuck you again.”

Seb shot him a faux coy look from under his lashes. “What makes you think I’ll want to bottom again.”

“Oh, please. You’re always wiggling that arse, asking for a fuck. But I’ll let you top. I like you…”

“Ploughing you with my huge, uncut cock?”

“Well, yes.”

“Tell…me…more,” ordered Seb on a gasp, but Sherlock didn’t bother speaking, just intensified his strokes, working the head harder, to become demanding, imperative, and unstoppable, as Seb tensed and threw back his head, the tendons straining. He stopped breathing for a few hard seconds then a sound, an indescribable moan-gasp was wrenched from him as he came. The sound became Sherlock’s name as Seb came, his climax wrung from him, and Sherlock slowed, softened and then stopped his strokes, stopped slipping, sliding and playing in the silken liquid of the hot cum.

“Bloody hell. I’m getting too old for this,” Seb said when he could speak . He was half collapsed flat, eyes closed, and had stopped penetrating Sherlock long since. “I’m mean, I’m ready and willing to plough you as ordered, but not able.” He opened one eye.

Sherlock enjoying making Seb pout out a gasp as he watched Sherlock raise his hand to his mouth and lick his fingers, wrinkling his nose at the sharp, urgent white chloride bleach smell.

“Do you still need…”

“Didn’t you bring any toys?” Sherlock knew he had. They’d used one yesterday. “First one you grab. I’ll shut my eyes. Surprise me.”

“Oh. It’s a little…big. I don’t know if you’ll be able to…”

Sherlock turned fully onto his front, dragging a pillow down to elevate his hips. He was eager for this, loved Seb’s filthy talk.

“I’ll use plenty of lube, but even so… You’ll be really stretched. Totally stuffed…”

“Oh.” The toy, whatever it was, didn’t feel that big as it was rubbed around his hole. Plastic… “Wow.” Bulb shaped? Not cylindrical; the smaller tip widening considerably.

“You’re so open. Coming up to the widest part already. You’re taking it all. So well. I’m so proud of you. God. Let me see you.”

Sherlock turned his head obediently, and Seb chuckled. “You’re loving this.”

The toy, plug, or vibe or whatever, was thick plastic, but gave a little as it was inserted, so the penetration was smooth, and he sighed and moaned as it pushed higher and he accommodated it. He did feel a little of the pride Seb had expressed in him.

“Probably the biggest you’ve ever taken. God.” It was in to the base: he could feel it snug against him. Seb tugged away the pillow and repositioned Sherlock more on to his side, lying draped over Seb. “You look amazing, taking that, and it looks gorgeous against your arse now it’s in. Feel as good as it looks?”

“Ohhh yesss.” Sherlock held Seb’s darkened gaze with his own dilated-pupil one, and Seb chuckled. He reached down to smack gently against the flared base and Sherlock felt the stars he saw must be visible in his eyes. His reaction encouraged Seb to play, very softly, turning the device by its base every so often, and that along with Seb’s whispered words making Sherlock whimper and gasp.

“I sometimes envy women,” Sherlock ground out.

“Why.”

“Imagine being stuffed full and getting fucked.”

“Umm. See what you mean,” replied Seb after a pause. He slid the plug out a little, inserting it to fuck Sherlock with it as much as his tightness and the toy’s width allowed. Sherlock tried to maintain eye contact but had to close his against the bright flares which streaked his vision. He sucked in a deep breath to speak.

“Did you and A –”

“Sherlock. Don’t.”

“What?”

“I would never say anything about a former partner. I’d never betray... Don’t. Please. I’d never ask you about V – anyone.”

“Ohhh.” Sherlock couldn’t or didn’t think he could… It was too much. That almost name, Seb’s knowledge of his past, knowledge he’d demonstrated before, the punishing strain on his sphincter, a sensation no longer bordering on pain but unmanageable. He closed his eyes tight and made a strange high-pitched noise, one he hadn’t made for years, and when he had last, no one had helped him. Seb was there.

“Hey. Shush. It’s okay. I’ve got you. One second.” He continued prattling soft nonsense as he removed the toy and swept it and all the lube, cream and everything from between them to the floor. He scooped under the pillow and hooked the bag of sweets in their wake: Sherlock was screwing up his nose against the sickly-sweet scents. Seb snatched up his pyjama top to clean them of the thickening, setting, old-bleach reek of semen.

He hit the switch for the bedside lamp, and then the only light coming in was the moonlight filtering through the high window, the curtains still undrawn. But Seb didn’t leave to attend to them. He twitched and heaved Sherlock on top of him and held his face into the crook of his neck, cupping the back of his head.

“There, Shhh. Be still. Breathe,” he whispered, and Sherlock took in a noseful of the faint remains of Seb’s familiar lime cologne and face cream. He breathed deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth and within a minute had his eyelids lightly held over his eyes, not clamped tight. He nuzzled into the space and felt Seb trying not to squirm and giggle. He huffed out a giggle at a less expensive, somewhat dirtier scent he could detect on Seb.

“Huh. Eau de Isis.”

“Oh, yes. And you too. All the best City bankers and consulting detectives whiff of damp rivers this season.”

After a minute, Sherlock moved back a little, but Seb held him close. “I’m okay,” he said, his voice gruff. “Don’t talk about it.”

“’Bout what,” yawned Seb, and this, so quick, so typical, made Sherlock smile when not much else would have been likely to.

“Thanks.” His whisper came small in the night silence, and Seb didn’t reply, just moved over for Sherlock to plonk himself down on his back, and then held his hand, tightening his hold slightly when Sherlock would have slid free. After a second Sherlock relaxed and even squeezed back, and that was how he dropped off to sleep.

 

“Don’t stare at me when I’m asleep,” were his first words on waking, without even opening his eyes. “It isn’t done.”

“Sorry. Cup of tea make it up to you?” Seb was chirpy despite their strenuous activities. Sod.

“ _For the Price of a Cup of Tea_ … It’s early,” commented Sherlock as he sat up gingerly and sipped.

“Mmm. Best time of the day for ghost hunting.”

“Wouldn’t that be midnight.”

“Mate! Too scary. I just thought if we retraced your steps, had a shufti…”

 

“What are we looking for? What do you hope to find? I didn’t see anything here. I wasn’t even in here yesterday,” said Sherlock, picking the lock of the chapel door, neither of them bothering to search for the hidden key.

“Dunno. Maybe the tomb…”

“What, empty? We’re tomb raiders now?”

“I don’t know! And you used to be quicker at this,” Seb griped.

Sherlock heard a click, felt the give, then pushed. Mission accomplished. “You’re in.” He opened the door for Seb.

“Aren’t you…”

“Rather not.” See the place you stood and promised to love someone else forever, his cool gaze finished for him.

“I wished so much you’d been there, that day.” Seb looked down, as if the wooden flooring of the vestibule was so absorbing. He turned to look down the long space to the altar. “I kept turning back, convinced you’d show up, especially at the just cause bit. Alli kicked my ankle to get me to focus.”

Finally he looked at Sherlock. “I was so wrong to stand before God and the congregation with someone who wasn’t the person I wanted.”

“Don’t… Just…don’t.”

“I cried after.”

“Seb, what?”

“On the honeymoon.” He grasped the hand slipped in his. “Alli cried too. Later when she was a bit drunker she said it was because she knew what I’d been thinking, hoping, in the church.”

“Please.”

“But that wasn’t it: she was crying because she’d been wishing it too.”

His words echoed to the vaulted ceiling, bounced off the glass windows, rang off the faded frescos, the carved wooden pews. Seb didn’t discuss exes, would never be disloyal to them, so Sherlock understood now if he hadn’t before what Seb had considered the deepest, most egregious betrayal. He pressed hard against Seb, hugged him, cradled him, whispered his sorrow into his ear, both of them supported by the ancient frame of the open door. Eventually he cleared his throat and eased off a little.

“Well.” Seb was the first to recover.

“Indeed. So I suppose I’d better civil marry you, civil partner you, whatever it’s called, after keeping you dangling so long.” Sherlock’s tone was light, but as he stroked Seb’s face, his hand wasn’t one hundred percent steady.

“Yeah? You’d do that? For me? To make it up to me? Despite you being hardly civil, most days?” Seb caught Sherlock’s hand. His wasn’t totally steady either.

“Yes. And because…I want to.”

“Oh, mate. I don’t know what to say. _Mate_ covers it, I suppose.” Now they were both smiling, big grins which became laughter.

“Wow. So we’re…what? Affianced?” Sherlock tried the word, tried for lexical solidity to anchor down the lightness, the giddiness bubbling through him.

“Plighted.”

“Promised?”

“Trothed.”

“Isn’t it _be_ trothed?”

“It’s un _believ_ able, is what it is!” Seb shouted the second word and made the building shake.

“Shhh!” Sherlock dragged him inside, away from the door. “Remember the cover story. Not much longer.” But he wanted to shout as loud as Seb. Was, inside.

“Wow. No. Yes, I mean. Oh, mate. It’s going to be brilliant.”

Walking hand-in-hand, they’d reached the founder’s memorial stone, ancient, flat, set into the floor near the altar. Seb slipped round to one side and leant across. “I promise not to be such a wanker,” he whispered.

“I’ll try not to be such a twat,” responded Sherlock, bending forwards a little so their lips met and sealed their vow.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

“We have to think –”

“Of Alli, yes. Keep things discreet.”

“Woah. See that? We’re already –”

“Finishing each other’s –”

“Clichés.” They were giggling so much they didn’t see or hear anyone come in, much less sneak up on them

“Worst snoops ever,” commented Frik.

“Not actually. Worst ghost hunters ever,” corrected Seb.

“There’s no bloody ghost, man!”

“Do you have special detection equipment?” Sherlock asked.

“Just a room thermometer. There was no drop in temp. here when I sat a vigil here and in the crypt.”

“Seems rather random,” Sherlock commented. “You’d need to repeat it more than once under the same conditions.”

“He’s a scientist,” Seb informed Frik proudly, and Frik shot them a sharp look from his ice-blue eyes. “Further to my text – and I’m a man of business, a _l’homme d’affaires_ , if you will – this is what we’re doing.”

Sherlock realised Seb had filled Frik in on the events or non-events of last night. Frik asked a few questions, then asked Sherlock matter-of-factedly if he’d taken anything. Sherlock glared.

“Let’s get out into the open.” Seb ushered them to the door. He just pulled it to behind them. remarking the place would probably have better security when the chapel was expanded, or restored or whatever it was he’d been reading about, to bring it back to its full glory and accommodate the increased number of carved choir stalls, with all the focus on the choral side. Sherlock wondered just what donation Sebastian and Allegra’s parents had contributed, to hold their children’s wedding there. That stained glass window looked about the right age.

“I know what you’re thinking. And if you were to examine it, you’d find our symbol scratched into it. Improving it, if I say so myself. Also, an organ scholarship? A disappointment. An organ scholar is not what I’d imagined it was.” He squeezed Sherlock’s hand discreetly as they walked the route Sherlock had taken last night, with Frik recreating his climb, rooftop hop, drop, scramble, but not the swim, filming what he could.

“Moonlight reflecting?” suggested Frik. “Here, on the water. Look at these photos: shiny patches on the lodgings roof. Could have bounced back glints. Same with the chapel.”

“And the white thing I saw? Might have seen?”

“You’d been drinking,” began Frik.

“Oh don’t be so puritanical. I didn’t have much.”

“True. I usually drink…well, more than that. Better stuff too,” said Seb.

“I didn’t drink anything. Completely random and don’t get the wrong idea, but did either of you smell your piss this morning?”

“No; think I forgot, actually.” Seb leant back against a bench on the path and eyed Frik.

“Didn’t know we were supposed to. No one copied me in on that.” Sherlock exchanged a hip bump with Seb.

“Right. Yis, it’s a lark.” Frik was irritated, his accent stronger. “Which is why I’d like Mr Chemist here to analyse my urine. From this specimen, _eish_.” He pulled out a…repurposed miniature shampoo bottle from his hotel room.

“I’d be looking for what?”

“Anything that shouldn’t be there. _Boom_ , _dagga_ , whatever.”

Drugs? How would… “Fine by me. Seb? All right with you?” Sherlock startled himself – running it by someone else had been automatic.

“Yes. Very all right.” And of course Seb was meaning more than the plan. “My parents and Alli’s ma are arriving for lunch. Alli and I have to join them. We’ll make it clear we’re not reconciling. I don’t want any doubt over this.”

“That’s…good.”

“Chris and I will be in the library. Libraries, I suppose, actually,” said Frik.

“Good Lord. Chris’s geekified him,” commented Seb as they watched him walk back to the quad. “I hoped it would be the other way round, but… Well, onwards.”

“Huh?”

“To the lab! I’m a benefactor and I want to be shown around! How else will you get in on a Saturday? We can cut along here, get to the Parks… Do I look beneficial enough?”

“Oh, very much so.” Seb looked good in his smart-casual wear, and he knew it. “It’s called the Science Area now. It’s an all-new all-in-one chemistry research laboratory now. No old-fashioned little organic chemistry lab now.”

“Oh.” Seb’s lip wobbled. “Denied. I’ll have to turn to comfort eating. Actually, can we stop off for a bite? Or at least pick up something to go?”

“I’d rather we didn’t. I might need a blood or urine sample from the both of us, and I’d rather whatever I’m testing for hasn’t been helped metabolise further.”

“Sexy science. With samples.” Seb nodded in approval as they crossed the river.

“And no snacks.”

“That’s okay. I’ll need to start a pre-wedding diet. I don’t want to be the fat one in the photos. If we have similar morning suits, we’ll look like a massive – and I chose the word with deliberation – spot-the-difference contest. Can’t have that.”

“God. _Wedding. Photos_.” Sherlock grabbed at the rails of the wooden bridge. “That’s grown-up stuff.”

“That’s fighting talk. You haven’t seen the themes I have in mind. But it’s…okay? You’re not going to freak on me?”

The best and only answer was to hustle Seb off the bridge and nudge him up against a tree to grope him. “Freak? Only in the best way,” whispered Sherlock. “I suggest you call your mate the chancellor or the vice-chancellor and tell him you fancy a little look-around and I kindly agreed to accompany you. Should open all the doors we need.”

He listened as Seb held a short conversation, explaining his bank’s feeling that the intellectual property company which handled the commercialisation of the chemistry research department’s spin-off products’ patents could be floated on the SE, and he was scouting. “Not sharking,” he said very firmly, and Sherlock, who had little idea what any of the jargon meant and wondered if the VC did, had to walk on ahead to laugh in peace.

“All sorted.” Seb flipped his phone into the air, and Sherlock caught it. “Aha. High finance turn you on?”

“Bit. When it’s you.”

“And it’s…not actually a bad idea. If the company held an IPO… Think global, act local and all that. Half a tick,” said Seb, before snatching his mobile back and holding another short conversation with…the bank’s chairman. Sherlock knew the glib and the jokes were just a façade – Seb understood finance.

“Wow. It’s like the Square Mile,” was Seb’s awed reaction to all the steel and glass of the five-floor science park research facility.

“What, inhuman? Come on. Urine to analyse. You know you get…worked up in labs.”

“Dunno if all this 'I Can See Your Future' will do it for me. Or I might get my stimulus receptors confused and get a hard-on at work, it looks so similar.”

“Oh, you mean a stiffy in the City,” remarked Sherlock, and supposed the guard wondered why the pair of them were laughing like idiots as they walked in and made for the organic chemistry floor.

“It doesn’t even smell labby!” complained Seb.

“Her majesty wouldn’t have liked it if it did.” Sherlock pointed to the huge photo of the opening ceremony. “She thinks the whole world smells of fresh paint, you know. Because it does whenever she goes anywhere.”

They’d ascended to the third floor before being spotted, despite Seb’s awed, “escalators!” and “pod lifts!” but then Seb was occupied fending off the staff, obviously the highest-ups available at no notice, trailing him and championing their work. He blinded them with his spiel. Most of them stepped back a little and pretended business elsewhere when such bombs as “equity,” “realised gains,” “unrealised gains,” “quoted,” “listed” and “public offering” were dropped.

“And you mentioned facilitating random drug testing, the timeframe vs. the ease factor when it becomes mandatory in the City?” asked Sherlock, wallowing in the City cant.

“Indeed. Where the US SEC leads, the FSA is sure to follow. Could you perhaps…”

“Might I walk Mr Wilkes through it?” Possibly no one still present thought he meant actually help himself to what he saw fit. Their problem.

“Will it take long?” whispered Seb, covering for Sherlock as he dealt with the sample.

“Screening? No. Just dividing it into two and performing an immunoassay as initial screen. If it’s positive – oh. It is. Positive for drugs.” He stared at Seb.

“Which?”

“That’s the next step. I’ll run a ten-panel screen. Test for everything.”

“How long will that take?”

“It’s the latex gloves, isn’t it.” Sherlock wriggled his covered fingers.

“No; it’s making me want the loo.”

“Same thing. And hold that thought. Seven minutes for the simplest, ten for the more complex.”

Within ten minutes the sample was revealed positive for benzodiazepines and methaqualone.

“Bugger,” remarked Seb.

“Do we need to know which drugs, specifically?” asked Sherlock.

“Don’t know. Do we? Does it take l –”

“Ages. I’d have to think of an excuse and collect them tomorrow or Monday.”

“You are definitely getting your own lab in 221,” commented Seb.

“Finally! Look, I’d bet the drugs are Valium and Quaalude. The most common of each class. And not to lead you on, but come into the loo and pee on a lab stick with me.”

“Separately. One stay on guard here. Give it here.” Seb grabbed it and went. Sherlock followed once he was back. Both were positive for the same two classes of drugs as the sample had been.

“Bugger again,” remarked Sherlock.

“And notice I’m not asking you…any questions about illicit substances,” said Seb quietly.

“I was just about to say the same!” Sherlock was incredulous. “Maybe we have matured.”

“Did you wash your hands?” asked Seb suddenly, and Sherlock almost choked on bitten-back laughter.

“We need to figure this out. How we were dr –”

“Not here. Let’s go somewhere safe.”

 

“This is safe?” Sherlock queried a little later, looking around at the stretch of pasture bordered by the 'House' on one side and the river on the other.

“Mate. Sheep?” Seb pointed. “If sheep may safely graze, it’s good enough for us. Plus no one can sneak up on us, it’s so open.”

“Just don’t see why we had to come all this way. We’re the other side of the city, for one thing.”

“It’s just a mile. And it would’ve taken us a lot longer if we hadn’t taken those bikes.” Seb tapped his nose.

“Er, yeah. Mate? It’s not actually like Holland? Taking bikes – even if you do leave a cash payment and instructions for the owners to collect them from outside William later…” Sherlock gave up. Didn’t even point out they’d always said they’d never cycle. He copied Seb and sat down, then lay back propped on his elbows. Seb hitched himself on his side to study him, and Sherlock hooked a foot over Seb’s ankles. It might almost have been a nice morning, except –

“So. Drugged.”

“Yes. Doesn’t seem fair, somehow, you breaking the terms of your Caution for that.”

Seb grinned, but he was serious. “Frik will go ape. He’s so straight-laced about all that healthy mind, healthy body stuff. He says lager doesn’t count. They have it on their soggies out there.”

“What’s ‘soggies’?” asked Sherlock after a pause.

“Dunno. I’ve never liked to ask. Right. Focus. Something we ingested the day before yesterday. In the pub, or the chippy? No; Frik didn’t eat chips. Pub, then.”

“No; I’d say ingested _yesterday_ by the concentrations still present.”

“Okay. Hall for breakfast, okay not you, beer cellar for lunch? Frik and Chris ate there.”

“Not me. Didn’t lunch.”

“God. No wonder you’re so slim.” Seb spared a minute to leer at him, hooding his eyes and giving him one of his patented elevator looks. “And so we must have all…taken something by accident later, at dinner? I mean, what if someone put their medicine in a glass to take it and we…took it by mistake. Yeah...”

He made a pained face and held his hand out for a curious sheep to sniff. It took a sniff of his face instead.

“Not likely three of us would have accidentally drunk from the same glass or cup,” replied Sherlock. “And what is it with you and sheep? Should I be jealous? Is this something I’ll have to deal with once we’re…”

“Say it. I dare you.” Seb’s eyes gleamed cobalt blue in the shaft of sunlight.

“MARRIED!” Sherlock all but cried. The noise startled the sheep into dashing away.

“So, multiple druggings. At least three. Seems…strange,” Seb continued the sleuthing.

“I’m wondering if the perpetrator took a scatter-gun approach to getting the person he wanted to drug,” said Sherlock. “To make sure he got one, aim at all.”

“All?” That had only just occurred to Seb, seemingly. “We should test, what, Chris? That Kirsty girl? _Alli?_ Wow.”

“Let’s move from how to who.”

“Oh. Maybe it was the board, or one member, trying to get the prince, stop him running for VC, embarrassing them and William College with his scheme?”

“They seemed to back him,” Sherlock pointed out. “Also, the drugs wouldn’t have killed him. Anyone.”

“What would they do? The mixture of drugs?”

“It’s not the drugs; it’s the association of the different classes. Well, benzodiazepines, as you know, are a sedative, a hypnotic. Used to treat anxiety states, or muscle spasms, and methaqualone is essentially the same, but reduces the heart rate and can induce euphoria, amongst other things.” He didn’t bother mentioning it induced aphrodisia. “Plus the drink… It would have left everyone very chilled out. Very relaxed.”

“You hallucinated!”

“My brain chemistry’s not…really neurotypical.” Sherlock looked away, then met Seb’s eyes, searching for…something. What, he wasn’t sure.

“Will you tell me, one day, about it?” Seb’s eyes and voice were steady. He stroked Sherlock’s ankles.

“Yes. And…Victor. It’s…not pretty. Life isn’t.”

“It bloody is now, mate.” Seb captured and held his gaze until Sherlock nodded in agreement. Seb mouthed, “Thanks.”

“Well,” he continued. “Maybe we were unlucky last night. Got mixed up in something?”

“Or maybe we got in on something long-term. I can analyse hair. The root would show how long drugs have been administered for.”

“Whose hair? I’m a bit lost, Belle. I can’t see who could have been the target.”

The notes of a Christ Church bell pealed out lazily, gamboling over the meadows, putting a pause into their speculation.

Seb was the quickest to say the, “Ch Ch,” as the notes faded. Then, “Sod! Lunch! Parents! Have to zoom!” He ignored the buzz of a message from his phone, then the ring tone. Presumably Alli and his parents liked to issue reminders.

“Race you,” said Sherlock, getting up, coiled, ready, grabbing at the handlebars of his Dawes to straighten it for the off.

“Knew you’d say that,” Seb replied, pushing the bike over casually, and a tangled-up Sherlock found his shoelaces tied together, and so took much longer to start, cursing as it belatedly occurred to him Seb hadn’t gone back the way they’d come, but had gone east over the meadow, presumably to exit via the Botanics, despite having a pushbike with him. Wanker. So competitive. Who hadn’t got stuck weaving his way through the fast-food munching, digital-camera-waving weekend lunchtime crowds.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

“Afternoon, Mr Holmes.” Young William gave him a half salute as he came in. “Be calling you Dr Holmes any day now, so I hear. That should bring our DPhil tally up nicely. Smithers, my opposite number at Corpus Christi, is always ribbing me about – Oh, good afternoon again, Mr Wilkes. You’re on the go today.”

Seb had washed, changed and was now dashing out again. The Randolph? Sherlock wondered. The Quod Brasserie? Seb turned and made an ‘I’ll call’ gesture over his shoulder. On reflection, Sherlock was happy not to be there. He hadn’t seen the Wilkeses for years. Didn’t particularly want to now. At least until Seb had paved the way. He spared a thought for his own parents and Mycroft’s reactions to learning the news. As Seb might say, _Lord_. At least Mrs Hudson would be happy for them. Oh, God, John…

Opening his pigeon post, an invite to that evening’s formal Hall celebration dinner for the new chair, he’d reached the Oblique and stared at the sight on the grass. After a minute Frik stopped his complicated-looking twisting sit-ups and got to his feet, pulling his T-shirt on. Oh. He’d thought Sherlock was ogling him? Well, he was a nice sight. More Seb’s type, if the man were brunet. Sherlock wondered for the first time about Seb’s relationship with the bodyguard, how long they’d known one another, if Seb had ever… Oh, relationships. Awful things, really.

“No, man. No drink until you’ve done at least one more of each.” Frik held the water bottle out of Chris’s reach, flat on the grass as he was. “Come up here and get it.”

“Can’t. My body’s not…madethe…same…asyours!” Chris’s grunt of frustration/exertion was loud as he finally touched his – thankfully covered – torso to his flexed knees.

“One more to the left. Yis. Now one more each side. Don’t you want Kirsty to –”

The loud grunts drowned out the rest as Chris seemingly completed his mandated reps. Sherlock thought Frik had taken his brief to look after Chris a bit too literally, really.

“No, don’t drink that.” He walked up and snatched the water bottle away from Chris’s pursed, parched lips. “Go and pee on a lab stick first. Here.”

“Oh, no, I can’t.” Chris, beetroot-faced, hair dripping wet, glasses steamed over, wagged a finger at the stick Sherlock held out. “I’m really squeamish about stuff like that.”

Frik stared hard at Sherlock. Sherlock inclined his head.

“Hey, no worries, man.” Frik gave his pupil a hard pat on the shoulder. “There’s two mates here: one to hold your prick and one to hold the stick. Won’t take a sec.”

“No!” Chris snatched at the lab stick. “But there’s no loo here.”

“Go into the rec room. The sink’s still there. It’s that or against a tree with us supervising, Chris,” said Sherlock.

“Said it before: he can move fast when there’s a threat against his person,” commented Frik, as Chris sped off. “He’s got good flight instincts. Easy to keep safe. So, news?”

“Positive for benzodiazepines and methaqualone. Sebastian and I too. I assume he is too, and the others. No idea how.”

“Sweet Jesus.” Frik gave a long, low whistle. “And?” He looked like a coiled spring.

“And when we find the culprit and we’ve solved this mess, you can…take it up with him. Or her. Within reason, I mean.” He put a warning in his gaze.

“Oh, no worries. I won’t be asking for help to bury any bodies.”

Sherlock didn’t find that, or Frik’s pacing very reassuring. He reasoned he wasn’t supposed to.

“I’m angry I couldn’t detect it earlier,” Frik continued. “And good thing I chaperoned the lovebirds, hey, with that mix of relaxation and aphrodisia.”

“You know a lot about drugs.”

“Have to. Part of the training. Oh, you think I’m some backwoods Voortrekker who joined up to see the world and kill people?”

“Do I look stupid? I know Sebastian would only employ the very best there is. That’s a good enough reference for me. I wouldn’t underestimate you for one single second. And I wasn’t staring just now. Well, not much. Sorry. Don’t tell Seb,” he finished on a mutter.

“Oh, he stares too. I’ll tell you what I told him: ‘you can look but don’t touch. Actually, don’t look.’” Frik clapped him on the back, hard, and laughed.

“Here.” Chris came back, holding the re-capped plastic stick at arm’s length. He dropped to the floor. Sherlock looked at Frik, telling him with a glance this result was the same as the others.

“Drink your wheat grass shake.” Chris took it from his personal trainer bodyguard.

“Chris, you didn’t ask why I wanted you to do this,” Sherlock commented.

“Any point? I’d have had to do it anyway. I assumed you want to be sure I’m not taking steroids for training or tranquilisers for the speech. Possibly for insurance reasons.”

“Oh, yes, the event. You’re very calm, considering.”

“Yeah, strange. I feel okay about it. I haven’t really felt nervous about it, and Seb’s arranging something to help, he says.”

“Hmm. I need a clump of your hair.” Chris sat stoically while Sherlock pulled out a few strands and dropped them into an evidence bag. He accepted a filthy tasting shake from the two men and texted Seb.

_Do you think C P-A was intended victim, to calm him down for his speech?_

He wondered if Seb would have his phone on, would be able to reply, but the answer came, _Dunno. This is hell. Can’t get word in edgeways._

_???_ Sherlock sent.

_Ma lamenting she’s the only one of her graduating class not a groovy grandma. Her arch-rival Blythe Danner lording it over her. She’s got two. Fastest time ever to showing my baby photos._

_Naked? Bearskin rug? I’ll have one of those._

_Stealing one of me with my willy out as I write. I’m actually aged thirteen and at big school. Sports Day. I can explain. Well. Ma now apologising to Alli for state of my teeth and showing brochures for invisible retainers._

_???_ Sherlock was really stumped.

_Braces, to you. In case that’s putting her, us, off. Any wonkiness inherited can be corrected. If kid wears his retainer/braces. She can’t see how I came back from uni with worse teeth._

Sherlock laughed. He could. He remembered doing it. And typically Seb, he’d never got them fixed. He got another beep and was puzzled to read, s _uggest SS/investor portfolio gives upfront sum and receives half of the Uni equity in spin-outs for 15 years._

A minute later he received, _Sorry, not you. Chairman. Projecting financing same time. Kinhell – is that Lest. at bar?_

_Dunno? Is it?_

_In disguise! Wearing a beret and drinking Pernod. I’m going over, clap him on shoulder and say, mon semble! Ça va?_

Sherlock chuckled again and scowled at his rolling-eyed lunch companions. Five minutes later he read, _not him. feel silly now but made new friend._

_I love you_ , he wrote, laughing, but hesitated, his finger on Send. He was amazed to get another message from Seb as he dithered, _Send it. Whatever it is you wrote. Send it._

_Later_ , he texted. This he sent.

_Promises. Love you. Over and out._

“Joining us, Sherlock?” Chris indicated the sweep of books and papers and laptops on the grass between them. Sherlock flipped his phone over and put it away.

“What’s this. Why have you ransacked the reading room?”

“See this.” Frik passed him a photocopy of a news article. An obituary. “We’ve been at the _Mail_ archives. Look when Mrs Anne Clare died. Ten years ago. Remember how Dr Clare admitted she was Amii Chase, that it wasn’t just a rumour?”

“Yes. But we all knew that anyway. Story goes he uses his connections to keep it an open secret, ensure no trail and sly digs in the press.” Sherlock shrugged.

“Now see the publication date of her romance books. Here’s the most recent ones. We got them from the shop today. Last year! She publishes about one a year, despite being dead! Has published more dead than alive.”

“Not bad for a corpse,” agreed Sherlock, taking up the three paperbacks from Chris and looking at their lurid covers. Same old, same old, battles with parliament, battles with his son, battles with the Austrians, battles with the Catholics. Skimming through them showed him Alli had been right about the richness and detail. A depth of research had gone into each one – well, the woman had been an academic and this her period.

“The early ones seem to be more about George’s mistresses. There’s practically a book about each woman, look. Then the later ones are more about the Jacobite rebellions, George away fighting, and Caroline ruling as regent.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Sex sells. Picturesque battles sell. Bit of a boring period to write about, I’d have thought. Also thought you were a mathematician, not a lit student.”

“Analysis is analysis,” Chris replied.

“Research is research,” added Frik, passing his iPad over to Sherlock.

“You’ve… You’re a hacker too?” Because surely the university press office was protected?

“No need. The press liaison officer for William gave me her password for my research. And she’s just a student, not a professional. Not on staff, I mean.”

“Oh, the prince does that. You saw the students last night acting as servitors? Alli and Chessy used to do the press.”

“Did they?” Sherlock asked Chris.

“It was mainly Chessy. She had the connections. Her mother did PR. She worked mainly for some goods designer shop or other. You saw the handbags all over, not just here, but in magazines, carried by stars at events and that.”

“Explains why she got a place here,” commented Sherlock, thinking of the rather vacuous girl.

“The college and the principal have had very good coverage always,” said Frik. “No students from this college have ever been involved in anything that could be seen as negative. But have you noticed the size of the college entry in the prospectus. Smaller.”

“It doesn’t pay to advertise,” Chris remarked. “That’s one of our slogans. Isn’t it, Sherlock?”

“Sort of. We don’t seem to have a selling point, either, like the other colls. Well, maybe the new Chair, new focus on Maths?”

He scrolled through the mentions of the college harvested by some alert program Frik was running, then got him to run one for Corpus Christi, a college similar in size and age. Many more hits than their coll had.

“Seems no news is good news?” he asked Frik. “The prince doesn’t like things splashed about? How the hell do we get students? I’m guessing he skims off those he wants from the open application system.”

“And Dr Clare gives talks at schools and colleges, or has contacts. I was recommended to apply here, for example.” Chris blushed. More. “I’m hardly Oxbridge material. Wouldn’t have dreamed of applying. Much as I love Oxford, because of…that band I’m conditioned out of saying the name of.”

“Doesn’t it perpetuate itself, like college in the States? Legacies, families having ‘their’ college and so on?”

Frik’s question seemed a fair one, and on a sudden thought, Sherlock phoned Seb. Phone off. Liking the thrill of the chase, it only Sherlock a minute to get the number for the restaurant of the Randolph and ask for the Wilkes party and Sebastian and be quick about it: he was the chairman of a City bank for heaven’s sake!

“Sherlock, I know this is you,” came Seb’s voice. “And thanks.”

“Quick question.”

“Oh, I like these surprise pop quizzes. I’ll take rude words for ten, please.”

“Bell end. No. Bit random, but you said the prince sent a group of future City bods to talk to you? Why do you think he did that?”

“What? He always does that. Annually. Useful for recruitment. It’s not just me he puts his final-year students in touch with. All ex-alumni in positions of what’s laughably called power. Bill gets his interns and private secs that way. Alli’s got a girl in the Hall.”

“Huh?”

“Her ma started hiring it out as a venue now she’s widowed. Filming location, meetings, small events. This graduate, can’t recall her name, helps. She did it at William for three years, conference and events managing – not that there’s so much of that there; more social media wrangling. Good training there for first having-hand-held job, which is good prep for something stronger.”

“Is that…”

“Standard? Yes. Most heads of colls, or usually the senior tutor, take an interest in students’ academic progress and welfare after school’s out. William has an excellent graduate employment record. Is that it? Only I’m due for some more heavy sighs of disappointment about now.”

“No one should be disappointed in you. I’m actually looking forward to meeting your parents.” His fervour took him by surprise.

“Oh. Right. Look; I’ll keep my phone on. Sod Emily Post.”

Sherlock wondered who that was. Didn’t care.

“The college has excellent graduate prospects,” he informed his colleagues.

“Hmm,” agreed Frik, showing him a table of inter-college statistics.

“Hey look! The dates match: whenever a new book is published, the college gets a cash gift from its ‘mystery benefactor,” said Chris, showing them different windows of articles from the _University Gazette_ with similarly worded news articles, and a search string from the University Press Office, expressing similar sentiments. “That must be the advance. Then look, annual donations from the benefactor. I wish we could see the amounts.”

“Royalties from the copyright. Must be. Most cash donations are in someone’s name,” said Sherlock. “That’s a lot of funding. So many novels…”

“People use the word copyright loosely.” Frik passed him an extract from a legal dictionary. “And this is interesting.” He pointed out the ancient snippet from the _Mail_ archives about local author Amii Chase and fans’ sadness at her death meaning no more of their favourite reading matter. “Seems she actually wrote tons and left a pile of manuscripts she urged friends and family to try and get published after she’d gone. That’s why they’re released every so often.”

“She had a prolific life,” commented Chris. Then, “Oh God. Anyone could have fed that news item to the press. What if she’s not dead? What if she left the prince and he can’t deal with the disgrace so says she’s passed away?” He hissed the last in a shocked rush, his little round eyes rounder.

Sherlock removed the pile of paperbacks from him. He’d been mainlining them. “Chris. Calm down. Next it’ll be, ‘what if he’s got her locked away after she threatened to leave? Locked up and writing more of this crap?’”

“He’s hardly Mr Rochester,” commented Frik.

“Who?” asked Sherlock.

“And they’re not that crap. Kirsty said you and Seb were awful about the books being costume porn, but they’re more like proper historical novels, so you don’t feel guilty, like you’re reading a breasts-and-breeches shocker. Although they’ve got sex.”

“Did I hear my name? And sex? Oh, I didn’t mean – Oh crivvens.” And Kirsty stood there, face blushing as fiery as her red hair. As red as Chris’s was. It looked worse with his more orangey hair, Sherlock decided.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Chris said you were researching into Amii Chase.” Sherlock glared at the youngest-ever holder of a named chair. Said holder was purple-faced again. “I know you all thought I was mad last night, going on about those other books, so I wanted to show you.” She sat down and lifted a paperback free of her handbag.

'“Lord Byron, _Le Diable Boiteux_.’ The limping devil,” Sherlock translated. ‘“Book One: Fierce Angel.’ It looks dire.”

“I got the second just now.” Kirsty met his gaze, her brown eyes steady as she handed him a bag from the bookshop. Sherlock took out the second in the series, _Passion’s Fool_. “I got the receipt. I wouldn’t normally buy a hardback, so…” She waited until an incredulous Sherlock counted out the cash for her, then gave him the till receipt. “Ta. This author, Carina Hunter, is Amii Chase. I’m sure of it. And it’s not just me who thinks so. See here.”

Sherlock studied all the chatroom and forum topics and conversations Kirsty had printed out. Chris flipped through the first Byron book, asking Kirsty what the sticky notes she’d placed in it referred to, and comparing all the idiosyncratic phrasing and lexis with similar examples from the Georgian series. They started on the second.

“May I ask why you spend so much time in romantic novel spaces? Chatrooms for erotic fiction publishers, discussion blogs, review sites?” Sherlock was curious.

“Erm, well, I just do, you know?” He didn’t need the thickening of her accent to tell she was being evasive.

“Ms Logan. I’m a consulting detective investigating a possible crime. As I’m sure you’ve realised Mr Fredrik is a bodyguard. There’s an undercover Scotland Yard detective placed inside the college” – even if they didn’t know where he was that day – “and Chris could be in danger. If there’s anything we need to know, tell us now.”

He counted: she took ten seconds longer than he’d expected to crack.

“Tell…all of you?” She glanced at Chris.

“Indeed.”

“Oh, fine. I’ve…written a book. And submitted it for consideration. But even before that I was always…”

“What sort of book?”

“For Liquid Sex publishers. For their _High Land, Hard Love_ series.” They all had to strain to catch this. “I read anything in the Great Scots genre. That’s why I got into the later books in the _Patriots and Rogues_ series, and the Byron.”

“Book? What’s it called?” Chris was sitting up like a kid hearing a bedtime story.

“ _Laird of the Dance._ ”

“I’d read it! Tell me more!”

“Well, he’s the landowner, what you’d call landed gentry, only he finds it very restricting and he’s always loved Highland Dancing so he competes under a fake name in a championship held in the county and…” She looked down, embarrassed.

“What, sword dancing?”

“Yes, and shield dancing, and he’s been studying old records found in his library so he competes using ancient dances, using the axe and the cudgel and the flail. Obviously there’s a lot of animosity to him and –”

“There would be! And what happens? Is there a lassie and they fall in love despite the class differences?”

“A lad, but yeah. There’s a finale, a dirk dance-off. It becomes a duet.”

“I don’t…” Chris looked sweet confused.

“It’s LGBT, Dr Parrington Andrews. M/m.” She shrugged.

“Gay, Chris. The laird finds a gille, not a Jilly.”

“Oh. Oh. I’d…still read it.”

“Seb would,” commented Sherlock, recalling Seb’s liking for reading out especially filthy passages from porn novels. Doing the voices.

“I hope they take it. And I keep telling you to call me Chris.”

“Thank you, Dr…Chris. But have you seen this?” This was from a Hollywood gossip blog, a blind item hinting that a certain Brit actor was about to get even more dark and brooding in his new role as Lord Byron in the upcoming costume drama movie of the Carina Hunter book.

“Because the film rights were optioned for a fortune, this period being very popular at the moment. Interesting,” said Sherlock.

“Chase, Hunter,” said Chris suddenly. “There’s a pattern.”

“Amii, beloved. What does ‘Carina’ mean?” asked Kirsty.

“Already there. One meaning is ‘beloved,’ answered Frik, showing them the baby names site.

“And I’ve spent the morning reading these, this mostly.” Kirsty carefully placed several books, one in particular, on her cardigan on the grass. “Dr Clare left me a reading list, but kindly lent me his books on the Romantics to start with. He wrote a few for that _Quest_ series of literary biographies, on Shelley, and so on. This is _Quest for Byron_.”

“What do all the Post-Its denote here?” Sherlock was almost afraid to ask.

“Things very similar to _Fierce Angel_ and the later books in the Georgian series.” Kirsty looked at them all, nervous now. “I hope you don’t think I’m sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted. I was only trying to help.”

“I like your freckled nose. I mean, you have helped,” said Chris, wincing and blushing. Their hues matched, Sherlock noted. “But what does it mean? That Mrs Clare wrote and writes Dr Clare’s books? He’s a fraud?” He actually had tears in his eyes. Kirsty got out a packet of paper tissues and passed him one. She took his glasses from his hand as he dabbed at his eyes, and cleaned them for him.

Despite all the mystery, all the stress, Sherlock was struck by a thought and texted Seb. _Kirsty’s here helping. And OMG, just thinking if she and Chris got together…_

_IKR? GINGER BABIES!!!_ he received almost immediately.

Sherlock pushed at a button and held out his phone to the person nearest to him. “Kirsty. Could you send a message for me?”

“Sher-lock!” Chris darted his glance between Sherlock and the girl. “You can’t ask people things like that!”

“What.”

“What are you, too posh to push?” His accent thickened too when he was emotional. Probably everyone’s did. Seb’s, for instance…

“Oh, what? No! I’m…too scared to send. Doesn’t matter.”

“Here.” Kirsty scooped the phone from his lowering hand. “This? Oh.”

“What?” And a second redhead bent over the screen, then a blond as Frik, standing behind the two, bent low. “Oh.” “Oh.” And two fingers squashed down on the Send key, and it was done.

“Don’t you even think about making notes on this.” Sherlock saw Chris’s hand twitching for his notebook. “Or you,” he added for Kirsty, thinking of her novels. “And why are you taking a photo?” He scowled up at the tall, smirking blond.

“You’ll thank me one day.”

The phone beeped, signalling a new text, and Kirsty handed it over, taking care she or no one else saw it. Sherlock read it, and the hugest smile broke out on his face.

“That’s…actually a bit frightening,” said Chris, averting his eyes.

“We’re done here, even if we’re not much further on. Perhaps you and Ms Logan could put these books back in there.” Frik jerked his head towards the reading room and looked meaningfully at Chris, then Kirsty. Sherlock betted Chris didn’t really get it, but knew he tended to do what Frik told him.

“What,” he asked, when they were alone, sensing something.

“Just to point out we don’t know the exact amounts of drugs we ingested, and that none of us should make important or emotional decisions until our systems test clear. That’s it.” He levelled an unsettling blue gaze at Sherlock, and Sherlock felt its power like a tangible thing.

“Oh. It’s not… We have a history. We were together before this. You know that. On the previous case. We’d already decided, I mean… Oh, shut up. And don’t tell Seb any of this.” But he accepted the hard clap on his back, if not the offer of organising security at the wedding. And maybe the point was valid. The primary effect of the drugs would be a relaxant.

“Better get moving. The events’ll be starting soon.” Chris emerged from the Oblique, gloomy. “Have to put that penguin suit on.”

“Oh, reminds me: your rooms are ‘clean,’” said Frik. “I’m not an expert in electronic detection, so I got Benjamin in.”

“Oh. That nice man from the tailor’s?”

“Yes, Chris.” Sherlock rolled his eyes. Even Kirsty sniggered.

“I bet you look lovely in a dinner jacket. Better than me in my ruff,” said Kirsty. “I have to starch it.”

“Erm….” Sherlock wished he’d left it alone.

“My choir outfit. I’m singing in the choir at the chapel service,” Kirsty said. “I mean, I’m in the choir.”

“I’ll be there too,” Chris assured her. “Wouldn’t miss it. Even if I could, if it wasn’t for the chair, I mean. Oh you know what I mean.” He was hyperventilating. “I’ve been to a couple of performances. Standing room only, some of them.”

“Have you always sung?” Sherlock asked, his mind snagging on something.

“Yeah. Since I was a bairn. Had training too. I’m a soloist. That’s how I came here.”

“You’re on a choral scholarship?”

“Yeah. Not really much good at maths.” She blushed, and Sherlock’s next question was almost lost in Chris’s denial of that and Frik’s suggestion Chris give her private tuition.

“Didn’t you want to study at Christ Church, or Magdalen? The colleges with professional musicians running the choir, not just the organ scholar?”

“I did, yes, but at the open day to see about being an academical clerk – oh, the name still makes me smile – I met Dr Clare, and he explained all the things William could offer me, and the investment in the music side of things it’s been making, the plans to maintain a full choral foundation. Plus he made me an offer with lower grades, so…”

“The choir’s doing great. People even come in to hear the practice, as well as attend the evening services to listen. They’re selling choir CDs at the porters’ lodge and going on tour soon,” added Chris.

_And Kirsty is ‘polished’ and ‘improved’ and I bet trotted out at every social or academic occasion. Used as an advert too to lure talented choral singers or organists or instrumentalists or accompanists away from the bigger colls…_ Myriad, disparate thoughts, suspicions even, began to coalesce, and he wasn’t sure he liked the pattern forming.

“Will you accompany Kirsty too, Frik?” he asked, to be informed, as he’d imagined, she roomed on the same staircase as Chris. That one Seb had so admired, with the paintings and statues. Kirsty must be a hell of a choral singer.

He watched the three go, looked up the date of the last BARS conference, and more information on how many of the rights to the Georgian series novels had been optioned, albeit for a limited time period and with no films emerging from the deals: options were still paid for. Setting off in their wake, he called Seb. Because all the research, all the facts they’d uncovered, all his suspicions were turning around one pivot…

“Pretend it isn’t me, if the wrinklies are getting mad,” was his opener.

“Of course, Sir William. Will do.”

“But I need to speak to Alli.”

“Oh. Of course, sir. _Sir William_ for you, Allegra. Better take it over there, quieter.”

Sherlock hoped Alli had understood the emphasis on the fake name. He heard them both apologising to the party as Seb handed the mobile over.

“Hello.”

“Alli, it’s Sherlock.”

“Would be. Yes?”

“I need to ask you something about…coll, I suppose. You had a huge set of rooms. How come?”

“If you’ve been reviving that ancient and disgusting rumour, I’ll –”

“What?” He was a bit alarmed at the venom in her voice, and waited while she asked someone, presumably the bartender, for, “A vodka. Really quickly.”

“I never slept with the prince. He was married, for one thing, and caring for his dying wife. It’s foul of you to –”

“I never even heard you did!” Or if he had, he’d deleted it. “Seriously, I wouldn’t care if you had.”

“Well I haven’t!”

Sherlock imagined a few heads turning at the volume. There was a pause and the noise of drinking.

“That’s better. Go on.”

“My question stands.”

“Oh. Well, it’s connected, I suppose. I’d never heard of the college, really, and wandered in on a quick tour of some colls on an open day. I went on them all, just to get away from school. Hated it.”

“Me too. And Seb.”

“Mmm. So there I was, strolling along, queening it, saying how much better organised the visit could have been if only they’d listened to my plans, and Dr Clare swopped down and separated me from the herd and took me on a private tour and to tea on his lawn. Asked me all about what I wanted to read, to do… I was honest that I hadn’t a clue. I loved Fine Arts and Art and History, and also business, and I’d been sort of chatelaine-ing at the Hall and running stuff locally. I’d done a weird mix of A-levels. My parents wouldn’t hear of me studying business, and Dr Clare agreed. Said I could get all the hands-on admin and business experience as I went along.”

“Yes?” He hoped she wasn’t ordering another drink. This could go on.

“Oh, he explained all about his wife, how she was ill, couldn’t contribute to the life of the college, how it was so sad to see standards sliding…”

“The rooms?”

“Oh. The upshot was why didn’t I read for a degree in History of Art, get a first and so my pick of museums, galleries, etc., if I wanted to work, plus practice all the people and financial and PR skills I could ever want by _de facto_ managing things at William. Of course I’d need a set of rooms to hold meetings, plan fundraising, etc. Oh, I’d have to contribute financially, you see. But that was okay – Dad was alive then of course, and there was cash around, if I couldn’t raise it. Oh, I’d have minions. Represent the coll. Be its visible face. It sounded… You know what he’s like. I was captivated. He was on the phone to my parents, raving about my possibilities and prospects, and between them they filled in all the application forms for me. And there I was, taking his wife’s place. But not in that way. Filthy beast.”

“I didn’t –”

“I’m going to make you pay for that. I’d say I was going to hit you, but that wouldn’t have any effect. Just you wait. I’m going to do a BB later. Make you squirm.”

“What.” She’d obviously had a double.

“A breast bounce. Undo a few buttons and jiggle about. Frighten you with my heaving bosoms. Chessy, Rissa and I used to do it to you when you were particularly annoying. Sent you pale.”

“The fuck.”

“Time how long till you had to rush away. It was fun.” She could hardly speak for laughing.

“You’ve _told_ him?” Seb’s voice. “Quick vodka, please, Lee.”

“I _hate_ you.” He fell back into the old code.

“This is Seb.”

“You too. Bastard for not telling me.” He was seeing a succession of images…

“They made it worth my while not to. In fact, one night… Oh. I’m going to be paying for that incautious remark for some time to come, aren’t I.”

“Oh yes.”

“But Belle, something else. Something serious.”


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen**

Sherlock could have guessed what was coming.

“Pa has been going on about the endowment. The restricted investment. Seems it wasn’t” – there was a pause while Seb knocked back a drink – “as restricted as we thought. It’s been dipped into over the years. He’s just found out, and he’s fuming. Well, he’s in a strange mood anyway, and this was the last straw.”

“But the funds have been used even without the chair being started? Or vice versa, the chair not started so the funds could be –”

“Yes. Sherlock – this is awful, isn’t it.”

“Yes.” He knew what Seb meant, that they’d reached the same conclusions and knew what they had to embark on.

“Do we have to…”

“I think so. Don’t you?”

“Yes. Whatever you decide, I’m with you. You know that.”

“Mum? What are –”

“Well, you’re all here!” The woman’s voice had a mature timbre. Seemed Mrs Chamberlyn had joined them at the bar. “Thought I might as well have a quick one and –”

The rest was lost. Probably just as well. Sherlock reached the porters’ lodge.

“Sherlock, what’s next?”

“I need to talk my conclusions through with someone experienced in the criminal investigative process. Someone used to reasoning out a chain of events, arriving at conclusion. Someone just arriving now. Even if he is…sporting traces of two different shades of lipstick and hints of two different perfumes.” Sherlock stared hard at Lestrade.

“Go for it, mate. Anything you need. Keep me informed. Love you.”

“Yes,” said Sherlock somewhat absently, disconnecting, and applying his mind to Lestrade’s appearance and the bronze versus old rose and the lily of the valley fighting with the iris root and musk. “Oh, I see. Here’s a fifty-pence piece,” was his comment.

“Do what?”

“For you to flip and choose between them. I presume you’ve been introduced to Alli’s mother.”

“Yeah. How… Never mind. She’s…very like her daughter. Older, obviously, but…she’s still stunning, and… Oh. You’re enjoying this. Pack it in.” He scowled and copied Sherlock’s gestures to rub at the lipstick marks on his cheek.

“Let’s get away from here for a while. All this fuss…” The college was beginning to bustle, arrangements obviously being set in motion for the celebrations. Busy as he was, Young Will beckoned him over to hand him a small package, something Seb had obviously had made and which made him grin.

“Sebastian Wilkes. You give the best presents,” he muttered. “Come on.”

“Hang on. Where we going? I’ve only just got here. And do I have to pee into a plastic cup for you?” Lestrade griped. A gasp from a small group of women they passed was heard.

“He’s fake French,” called Sherlock, back to the group, not stopping his quick pace down the city’s quaintest street to the High.

“Been round that college, and that church, and that library,” Lestrade muttered as they passed a succession of buildings. "Had a scone in those café-vaults."

“You want to get back to London, don’t you?” Sherlock asked, leading Lestrade inside the arched doorway of an ancient college, cutting through the quad and another staircase door to a monument inside an ornate domed metal-barred enclosure. “Me too. Not long now, I should think. Clear the room, please.”

“Er, police.” Lestrade flashed his warrant card at the gaggle of tourists and scowled at those who tried to film him. In a second the small domed space housing the reclining white marble figure on a plinth was empty, and Sherlock backtracked to hang the _CLOSED: ‘LEWIS’ FILMING IN PROGRESS_ sign on the outer door, which he shut. They were safe.

“Very appropriate.” He indicated the monument to Shelley.

“Erm, Sherlock? I’d rather not whip my cock out here. CCTV and all that?”

“Lestrade, you seem obsessed with flashing and public urination. Have you signed up, become a student?”

“So you don’t need me to…” Lestrade thankfully didn’t suggest whipping his prick out again or defacing a national treasure of a monument.

Sherlock walked quickly around the small room, right around the effigy. “Sebastian mentioned our findings?”

“Yeah. And that Alli was probably affected too. And when I get my hands on the bastard, whoever… Oh. You know.”

‘“Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity,’” Sherlock quoted, nodding at the inscription on the wall. “What do you know about the poet Shelley, Greg? Do you know he wrote prose as well as poetry, including a fragment about an ideal society, an Eden, based on the principles of benevolence and acting for the greater good?”

“Can’t say as I did. Don't know much, actually. Wouldn't really be my ideal choice of specialist subject on _Mastermind_. All I know about the bloke is he’s supposed to have written that romance book his wife is famous for, isn’t he? Oh. I see.” Lestrade leant folded-armed against the funeral marble and looked at Sherlock.

“We’ve been looking into Byron. Perhaps the answer was nearer to hand.”

“You’ve got it, then. I can tell by the speed and tightness of your pacing. So. Gimme? I’m listening. As always.” He managed to rub a hand down Sherlock’s arm as Sherlock swung past him, starting on the strange, fantastic tale.

“Means and opportunity, yeah, no problem,” he commented after Sherlock’s first round of quick-fire explanation. “But motive? If someone’s getting their hands on those amounts of cash, you’d expect to see signs of it.”

“And you do. All around.” Sherlock continued his analysis, his reasoning, as full of lack of reason as it seemed.

“We don’t have much to charge with. Nothing, really. It’s all circumstantial.”

“I know. But we’ve been here before. Remember the Grosvenor Square case? We got a confession.”

Lestrade looked at him, a gleam in his eyes. “So we did. Thinking of laying a trap, then?”

“But nothing so elaborate, this time.”

“Just as well. Seeing I’m not actually Thames Valley police.”

“No point thinking so small – you from the Paris _Police Judiciaire_!”

“Got a plan, then, have you? ’Course you have. Just tell me what you need.”

“You. I…seem to be needing you a lot.” Sherlock frowned, eyes flickering as he processed this.

“It’s only fair. I need you a fair bit too. Annoying though you are. Can be. Hope –”

“What.”

“Well, once you’re settled, down, and that, you’ll still have time to…consult. For the Met.”

“Always, you idiot. If I’m not there, what would happen when you’re out of your depth? And where would I find such interesting puzzles? And...well, someone who's not completely stupid and dull? No; you’re…stuck with me. And it’s your fault.”

Lestrade’s brow wrinkled at that, then cleared. “What, for taking a chance on you, all those years ago? Yeah, suppose I got what I deserved, which is fine by me.”

“Me too.” There was a pause. “I do hope,” enquired Sherlock, “You’re not waiting for a hug?”

“Nah. We’re still blokes.” Lestrade looked mildly horrified. “With a job to do. Tell you what, you can ask me to be your best man when all this is over. Aha! Gotcha! Your face! Classic. I won’t forget that in a hurry. Wish I knew how to work the camera on my phone. Come on. Let’s bait this trap, catch the bastard and get back to town. Back to proper drab grey buildings and decent luke-warm London Pride ale.”

And he wasn't even a native Londoner. Sherlock wanted to smile. “Which of us has the neatest handwriting?” he wondered. “Probably me. I had to study copperplate.”

“Actually for the Grosvenor Square case! Must be an omen,” remarked Lestrade, his grin brightening the melancholy quasi-tomb. “But don’t see why we have to write. What’s wrong with e-mail or mobile?”

“Some people refuse to adapt to them,” replied Sherlock, slowly.

 


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Eighteen**

“ _A-tishooooo!_ ”

It was a little later, and Lestrade was apologising for sneezing, explaining how the damp and dust and earth and plaster smell of the small crypt underneath the chapel was setting him off, Sherlock knew how he got doing the garden or DIY. Sherlock, lounging against the tomb of the college’s founder, merely rolled his eyes and suggested Lestrade conceal himself behind one of the squat square pillars the arches ended in, preferably one at the end of the long narrow space. The crypt wasn’t used now, but had started life as a lecture room, apparently, and then been repurposed as a lock-up for troublesome or unruly members of college. From education to punishment. Seemed fitting.

Sherlock had to stand in the vaults between the arches – the swoops were too low. He paced, then lit a couple of the candle stubs left on the pillars’ ledges.

“This is really creepy. They should put it on that Haunted tour. Yeah; been there, done that,” shivered Lestrade.

“But that would be prostituting our history. Disneyfication,” answered Sherlock absently, trying to get one of the flat panels of electric lights, left propped negligently against a wall from when concerts had once been held there, working. Above their heads movement and noise announced the chapel was filling up, people arriving and preparing for the service and its choir, Seb probably among them. Suddenly he heard footsteps making their cautious way down the short, vertical, crumbled-away set of stone steps and shushed his hidden companion.

The door was pushed open, its squeak satisfactorily eerie and prolonged, then the space was filled by the figure of a man. The man kicked the huge stone into place to wedge the door open, obviously needing the light to filter in. The bare bulb hanging and swinging from a precarious wire just outside, trying to light up the small hollow at the bottom of the steps, haloed the man’s sweptback silver wave of chin-length hair.

He advanced, and the wavering candlelight picked out the scarlet silk hood of the flowing black academic gown, the only spot of colour enlivening the black suit of his sub-fusc. No, not quite; denied a cravat, the man was wearing an ornate white bow tie and cummerbund, reminding Sherlock he should have changed for the evening’s events. Oh well. He couldn’t see Chris feeling slighted by the lapse. The pause was held, stretched, then the man broke it.

‘“I know what you’ve been doing,’” Dr Warwick Clare, principal of William College, possible future vice-chancellor of Oxford University, quoted in some distaste. “Appalling style. At least it’s handwritten, and legible. I wouldn’t have come, curious though I am, had it been typewritten.”

“Computer-written, these days,” replied Sherlock, advancing from the shadows.

“Is it really.” Dr Clare paused to light one of his slim black cheroots. Sherlock found himself irritated by this, for some reason. Why couldn’t the poser smoke normal cigarettes?

“You should probably know, before we proceed any further, the detective who was placed undercover in the college is here too.”

At least that made the man pause, raise an eyebrow. “Oh. So the colonial reporter was a fake?”

“Yes, in that he’s really a bodyguard, also placed undercover.”

“Bodyguard? Guarding whom?” Dr Clare strolled forward a pace, and Sherlock stiffened in readiness.

“Dr Parrington Andrews. Chris.”

“Why? This is absolutely hysterical, Mr Holmes.”

The man’s calm tones shook Sherlock a little. Was it? Into his silence came another voice, its West Country accent and speech pattern still noticeable despite years spent in the London Met. “I’m the detective. Detective Inspector Lestrade.”

“ _Interpol?_ Goodness, Holmes the Younger, you’ve crossed from hysterical to ridiculous. And I have a busy schedule to keep to, so if you’d be so kind as to excuse –”

“You wrote the latter and somewhat racier books in the _Patriots and Rogues_ series. And the new series about Byron. There are any number of Romantic scholars who’d attest to it. Plus whole schools of corpus linguists to swear also. Oh, and the Applied Maths people, including Chris, can run concordance software to search, access and analyse language corpora. And your latest protégé Ms Logan, also working for us, can bring in a whole battalion of backup on the topic too.”

“I’m somewhat of a fan of the absurd. One has to be, working with the younger generation.” Dr Clare shrugged a little, settling his gown around him. “Should I enquire as to the reasons for this farrago of nonsense?”

“There aren’t many motivators,” replied Sherlock. “Sad to say, as you’ve such rarefied tastes, this is spurred by the most common. Money. Money you need to run your kingdom, your paradise. Your Eden. The perfect world you cultivate and balance and reap. College.”

There was a pause. Finally Dr Clare spoke, raising his head challengingly. “If there is a kingdom, I’m its humble serf, not its sovereign, as you seem to be implying. Its lowly supplicant, in fact, one who abdicated all his worldy goods, even his intellectual property, in its favour.”

“Oh, please. Not the monastic devotion again. You hardly sleep in a bare stone cell.”

“And you’ve got hair.” Sherlock deliberately didn’t look at Lestrade as Lestrade said this. He couldn’t trust himself not to ask Lestrade what the hell TV docudrama, his weakness, he’d been watching lately. “You haven’t relinquished worldy pomp and vanity.”

“Oh, and the copyright? Not so much. It’s rather that the college can collect royalties in perpetuity. It’s not perpetual copyright – the college hasn’t retained creative control over the use of the material, and it can’t refuse permission to use it.”

“Oh, let us by all means quibble over legal terminology. So fascinating. There can be doubt that I’ve served not ruled –”

“Yes; you have!” Sherlock put scorn and disdain into his tone. He was out to goad, to wound. “You’ve created yourself a world in your image, and one you’d do anything to keep perfect and pure, untainted by –”

“And why the hell shouldn’t I? I’ve been of service, to people, to society, to the whole damned country.”

“And it’s not enough. Or no longer enough. That’s what power does, you see. It eats away at one, feeding on itself, destroying all that was there before. Corrupting. You want to be vice-chancellor of the whole university, with this as your calling card. Your blueprint. Could have been your plan all along, but I’d bet it’s more of a reaction to the changes coming, changes which will rock your world – and I mean that; I’m not using a metaphor – to its very foundations.”

“You really are the complete fool.”

“And with murder” – Sherlock raised his voice to drown out the invective – “you’ve crossed the line. Drugging or bribing or corrupting or stealing from people to achieve your goals is one thing, but killing them is quite another. You really can’t be allowed to continue, you see. ”


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

“Very well. I’ll play. It’s more entertaining here than sitting through yet another chapel service could be.” Dr Clare smiled a little, but no one smiled with him. “I’m a murderer, you say. Anyone we know?”

“I’d say not Dr Ashdown. Natural causes, man of his age, holidaying in Mexico, unusual food, unaccustomed drink, strenuous swimming, and so on. But Dr Stanley, from Imperial College… You didn’t want an outsider here. Easy enough to follow him and shove him into the traffic, busy London streets and you there for the BARS conference.”

“And _that’s_ your case against me? Any lawyer will parade a thousand people who were in the capital that day through the court. Such fun, but not a good advertisement for your depth of research. Anyone would think you’d been educated in the other place.”

“Talking of, I’m a chemist. One of those new sciences you despise. Not so new, actually, but never mind. I’ve already analysed bodily fluids and so I know about the drugs.” He spoke quickly; didn’t want Dr Clare rubbishing the lack of link between crime and perpetrator. “It takes longer to analyse hair, but it’s worth it as it does show how long a drug has been in one’s system. You’ve been at this a long time, creating a, what –”

‘“Happy breed of men.’ Lotus eaters. ‘With half-shut eyes ever to seem, falling asleep in a half-dream,’” threw in Lestrade, and Sherlock blessed the inspector’s half-arsed crossword puzzling, his stack of partially filled-in grids going back years that he kept in his drawer to procrastinate with rather than fill in paperwork. More so as neither work he’d quoted was the prince’s period. Double bonus.

‘“Better living through chemistry.’ Not really one of William College’s slogans, is it? I’d betting you’ve been at it years, in some cases, here. Keeping everyone mellow, chilled, in harmony with themselves and one another. Playing God, really.”

“Oh, I see. I get it now. Quite a relief actually.” Dr Clare had strolled right up to him, and Sherlock felt rather than heard Lestrade begin to move too. “Here was I thinking you’d gone all mediocre and middle-class, working for law and order, when you’re just pissed off that my work got Sebastian and Allegra together at the reunion eight years ago.”

It was like being punched. Sherlock sagged under the weight of the blow. But there was a one-two combination: “And I’m sure I could have got them back together again now had they but shared that set.” The statement, delivered in an innocuous matter-of-fact tone, rang through the small enclosed space and made it shrink.

“All for the benefit of the college, of course,” Sherlock gasped, thrown back to Seb’s out-of-character behavior that first night here, his fierce sexual aggression. He fought the images, the possible futures stretching out and also fought against the sensation of the stone arches becoming smaller, the dirty stone walls closing in. “What, restoring the entire chapel if they remarried here, or having the staircase where they met rebuilt?”

He was so grateful for Lestrade’s, “You’re a really shit matchmaker, mate. That’s not how it works. You can’t do that.”

“Of course it is! Of course I can!” This was loud, but there was no theatrical modulation to it, to stir the shades. No; it was raw and angry. “It’s easy! Murder? Maybe. Not my intent, but… I saw him, went to speak to him, and he was startled and slipped. I found myself grabbing at him, but not to pull him back from the traffic. To give him a push. Because that’s all it takes, all people need to get to behave how I need them to – a push!” His face was red. There was a hard, alien light in his eyes and his body grew rigid, his hands tensing into claws, almost.

“So the attempt on Chris on top of the chapel tower was just to keep the ‘shades of the founder’ ghost story going? Make sure the blame for the delay on the chair was laid there so no one would look into the cash side of things? Or should I say, cash cow?” Sherlock continued, needling.

“Where d’you get that from, all that shining lights and projecting a white image to fake a ghost? Not from one of your books. More like a kids’ cartoon,” said Lestrade, scorn dripping from his voice, making Dr Clare even wilder, spluttering in his fury.

“Oh, not just a matter of glinting light off reflective metal. That plus the right combination of drugs,” added Sherlock, dismissal in his world-weary hand gesture.

“Sod the bloody drugs! We’ve all done drugs!” came a voice from near the door.

“Pa!” and, “Oliver!” hissed out in response to this, and turning, Sherlock saw the angry voice belonged to…an overgrown Sebastian. An overgrown schoolboy, anyway, tall, well-built, with still-dark hair expensively styled to keep it in vain from flopping into his eyes, eyes that weren’t shining with plans and ideas now, but rage, and his hands weren’t rubbing together in anticipation, like Seb’s often were, but were clenched fists, held hard and ready.

“The money! You don’t touch capital, ever! Are you a complete twat? Interest’s fair game, no one gives a crap about that, but you never touch capital, never!” He was practically jumping up and down as he approached. The much smaller woman following him, slim, blonde hair carefully styled off the face to show off her bone structure, tastefully dressed in a well-chosen dress and jewels, laid a hand on his arm. (Recently repaired makeup. Didn’t take the news that her son and daughter-in-law wouldn’t be getting back together very well.) 

“Oliver,” she murmured. The man stopped.

“If you mention my blood pressure –”

“Why would I? I don’t know your blood pressure. Is there a problem with your blood pressure?” She let the silence hover for a moment as she pinned him with a steely glance and he muttered and shuffled. There was a sense of balance righting, their roles swinging back into places. “I was just going to remind you we said we’d let Sebastian and his people deal with this.” For now, her expression said. She nodded at her son.

Only then did Sherlock notice Allegra, bum-freezer Commoner’s gown over her clothes. She was holding on to the arm of an older woman, also dark-haired, her hair caught up but a huge fringe hanging loose, her dark-brown eyes darting around, taking in the scene as she were at a play. Allegra's mother. Wow. Full house. He half expected Mycroft or even his parents to stroll in. A slight noise from Lestrade recalled him to his duties, and Seb, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him as they made a barrier between the criminal and the other people.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Chapter Twenty**

“Oh, it’s all right, Mr Wilkes. The principal won’t be helping himself to the capital now. He doesn’t need to, although he was dipping into it during the recession, what with the dearth of parents prepared to spend big on their children’s futures.” He ignored the furious mutters of, “cheapskates,” coming from…both enraged men. “He’s fine now he’s stumbled on a commodity people are lapping up, in the shape of his dark, brooding romances. And especially now the film rights have been sold. Plenty of money in the coffers. Plus the chair will have to go ahead: he needs to show off the multifaceted excellence, the all-round perfection of William. Home for the arts, culture and science. Even though he hates science.”

He hoped his barbs were hitting home, and indeed Dr Clare’s voice was spitting venom when he replied, “Oh, let the little boys play with their abacuses and twiddle the buttons on their computers. What will remain of us? Sums? Equations? Formulae for some new chemical or other? I think not. The spirit of this house is art, poetry and music. Those are worth preserving. Worth living for.”

“Worth killing for?” asked Sherlock.

“Oh yes. In a heartbeat. I’d do it again, if I had to.”

“And that’s a confession. In front of witnesses,” remarked Lestrade.

“Pa was right. You’re a twat,” said Seb in disgust to his ex-principal.

“How dare you challenge me!” He was probably clinically insane at this point, judged Sherlock.

“I’m not challenging you. I’m giving you the same choice I gave to the desk manager and two risks systems managers of the trading floor at my investment bank when I discovered corruption: resign, leaving immediately and leaving me a full confession which will be lodged at Coutts, or stay and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“Resign!” Spittle flew from this outburst, and the roof echoed. Seb didn’t flinch. “Resign myself –”

“To your fate, yes.” Seb nodded, a tight gesture, and Sherlock felt the tension in every muscle in his body. He stepped as near as he could. There was no space between them.

“I see, young Sebastian.” Somehow, the drop to a calm tone and an almost relaxed posture was more frightening. “And suppose I were to say that I prefer…death to dishonour, shall we say.”

“Then I’ll again say the same to you as I said to them. Have the good manners not to make a mess after the maids have been in.” He didn’t drop eye contact once.

“You little shit.” And the depth of hatred revealed was cavernous. Slight noises indicated Allegra and her mother were moving forward, presumably unconsciously, feeling the need to back them up. Dr Clare half turned, sagging a little. He passed a hand through his hair. “Oh, on reflection I think I’ll go.” He raised his head, surveying the three separate groups, Sherlock and Sebastian, with Lestrade right behind them, the Wilkes, to one side, Oliver in front of his wife, and Allegra and Mrs Chamberlyn. “I’m getting rather tired of being the target of designing daughters turned desperate divorcees, and their merry widow mothers turning black widows with age.”

His meaning was plain. “Warwick!” Alli’s voice was anguished. He turned to face her as she approached. Which was a big mistake. Seb pushed Sherlock away, giving Alli room as she moved quickly, pivoting, balancing, one knee bent, the ball of the other foot on the floor. Her body rotated for extra weight and leverage as her fists came up and flew, but not in a punch, not with the knuckles: first one, then the other swung down, pounding the meaty, heavy part of the fist to the bridge of the man’s nose in two quick seconds. Bone cracked, blood spurted, and the man staggered back against a pillar.

Lestrade’s confused, “The fuck?” met Seb’s, “You’ve been seeing Benjamin!” and Mrs Chamberlyn’s, “Is that that Kung Jew stuff?”

Alli ignored them all in favour of stepping over to the downed man. “If you ever speak to anyone like that again, I’ll track you down and kill you.”

“Oh yes?” It was hard to make out the words from behind his huge handkerchief, and because of his broken nose and mouth full of blood. “And how would you do that, my dear?”

“She’s not your _dear_ , you cretin.” Mrs Wilkes had a residual American accent, Sherlock noted. She was beside Alli. “She can use this, if she likes.” _This_ was the gun she passed her. “The serial numbers are filed off, and it’s untraceable. Take it, sweetie. I’ve got more. I just brought that one out as it fits in this purse.”

“You clear off, while you’ve got the chance,” Oliver said, looming, as Alli was trying to politely refuse the gift.

Dr Clare pushed himself upright and surveyed the group, the room, and perhaps beyond, the college. The wreck of his paradise. It was surprising he had breath to speak at all, much less inject the amount of vitriol he did into his words to Seb:“You did this, you stupid moron.”

Sherlock reacted instinctively. He didn’t rotate his body or use his trunk as effectively as Alli, just clenched his fist as he hit out with an elbow strike, driving just below the tip of his elbow into the principal’s throat. He didn’t put enough force in it to render the idiot unconscious. Rather, the blow was designed for maximum pain, and it had the man on the floor, unable to take in a breath, much less rise.

“Don’t call him stupid. He’s in no way stupid,” he hissed. “Now piss off before I kill you while everyone here looks the other way.”

“And no, I haven’t been seeing Benjamin,” he assured Seb as those assembled stared at Dr Clare crawling away, a trail of blood splats left in his wake as scarlet as the hood on his now disheveled gown. “I learnt it on the streets.”

Alli turned to Lestrade. “I corrected my swing. You told me I should, remember?”

“Do, yeah.” He was wiping her hands for her. “Good hammer blow, that. Both of ’em. But who’s this Benjamin? Not that bloke from the tailor’s?”

“Oh, vile little man,” A shuddering Mrs Chamberlyn presumably meant the principal. “I’d have thrown my drink in his face, if I had one with me.” She gave a satisfied nod. “Oh, I think I feel faint.” She didn’t look faint. “Could you possibly…” This to Lestrade.

“Go.” Sherlock answered Lestrade’s look. “See you outside.” He showed his phone, and the text he was about to send to Frik, to Seb. “I promise I’d inform him.” His voice asked a question, however, and Seb thought a second, then nodded. Sherlock pressed Send.

“By the way,” said Alli, as she and Lestrade supporting her mother passed the Wilkes. “Just as I’ve moved on, so has Sebastian. And he has my blessing. He’d like yours.”

“Sebastian?” There was a quavering hope in his mother’s voice, and Sherlock wasn’t looking forward to what was coming next. “You’ve found someone else?”

“Yes, Ma. I have.” Seb’s arm came up and pulled Sherlock to him by the waist. “It’s Sherlock. Well, it always was.”

His mother’s confused, “But he’s a _man_!” overlapped with his father’s, “Son, are you _gay_?” and Sherlock really wasn’t looking forward to the next few minutes.

“I’m bi. I’ve never mentioned it as you’re disappointed enough in me already, but that’s me. I like it all, breasts, penis: it’s all good, but I’ve slept with many more men than women.” He shrugged, his mouth twisted wryly.

This time his father’s outraged, “Does _Allegra_ know about this?” almost drowned his mother’s, “Sebastian Wilkes, I hope I didn’t raise a manslut,” and Sherlock began to think, _this might not be too painful_.


	21. Chapter Twenty-one

**Chapter Twenty-One**

This time, Seb’s, “Not whilst I was married,” was followed seconds later by Sherlock’s, “Er, mate, you’re not doing yourself any favours with that, been there, done that line.” He tried to sound tart, but he was grinning.

“Well, I think it sounds very greedy.” His mother was cross-armed, probably in lieu of frowning, conscious of avoiding lines on her face.

“And silly. All this shilly-shallying about.”

“Oh, yes. Quite.” Mrs Wilkes agreed with her husband, who continued, before his son could get a word in, “Make your bloody mind up, son. You can’t have them all. It’s not the bloody sixties.”

“I never bloody said it was! And I bloody have! It’s bloody Sherlock!” Seb grabbed Sherlock’s hand and swung it in emphasis. “I’ve loved him from the moment I saw him. You were there, when I first saw him, you know. From my Oblique window, down in the Yard.”

“Oh my! Like Romeo and…Julio!” Was Mrs Wilkes a romantic, Sherlock wondered. He’d have thought life with Seb and Seb senior would have knocked it out of it her, if so, but.... “And you’ve been waiting for him, so long?”

“A thousand years.” Seb’s voice was husky, and he cleared his throat. It must be very dusty down there: Sherlock felt a tickle in his throat, and his eyes felt watery too. “And I’m not shillying about. I asked him to marry me, and he said yes.”

“That’s…not quite true,” commented Sherlock, feeling Seb’s grasp on his hand tighten. “I actually asked you. I think.”

“Oh. Oh, well, the answer’s the same!” And unmindful of their less-than-ideal surroundings, any lurking danger, and a possibly hostile audience, Seb snaked an arm round Sherlock’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss. And what a kiss. Heartfelt and full of promise, skilful, enticing and arousing, it was one of their best.

“Oh, you impossible sod,” Sherlock muttered against his fiancé’s lips as they uncoupled.

"Takes one to know one," Seb retorted, whispering in Sherlock's ear to make him shiver. A cough was heard, and they turned to face the other couple.

“Well, at the very great risk of being called outdated, and a snob, and inflexible, and…” Mrs Wilkes lost her train of thought as she pulled out cigarettes and lit up, managing a polite glare at her husband’s _tutt_ as she did. Her glance flickered down to the expensive black and white watch Sherlock wore, had worn for many years, through so much: Sebastian’s graduation present, regifted to Sherlock. He thought he saw Mr Wilkes catch it too. “I’m going to ask you, Sherlock, is it, what you do. Go on, laugh.” This last seemed to be aimed at her menfolk.

“Well, I…” _God_. His mind ranged over some of his latest cases and escapades. Pretending to be a vacuous rah to be in on a drugs drop. Working with Eastern European dockworkers to glean information on drugs shipments. Being trapped and blown up in a filthy warehouse by the smugglers. Before that, the Chinese case, which had brought him back to Seb. “Sometimes I –”

“Sherlock is of independent means and doesn’t have to do anything. But he does. He works as a consultant and only takes on unusual clients which interest him and stretch his abilities and also take him all over the world.”

“That’s…about it, really.” Sherlock gazed at Seb, amazed at the speech. “You’ve been practicing that.”

“Yes, because you won’t.”

“Consultant, eh. Nice.” Oliver probably thought Sherlock was some sort of advisor, like he was. “Good life. It’s great, isn’t it, getting paid a fortune to tell people what to do. And I think Sebastian’s mentioned you to me, recently.”

“Oh, that’s charming. No one tells me anything.”

“Rose, Seb asked advice about Lassiter.”

“Yes. Sherlock needs to release funds from his trust so we can buy the three-floor central London property he currently lives in and make it our home.”

“Ridiculous. Trust at his age?” Mrs Wilkes gestured with her cigarette.

“True. Looks like your grandfather was some sort of eccentric, but no one over the age of twenty-five should have things held in trust. Unless they’re mentally incompetent, of course. Are you?”

“Shouldn’t think so,” Sherlock replied to the couple.

“You should break that trust. Be interesting. Quite a challenge. Be quite a feat. Set a precedent.” Oliver nodded in satisfaction, looking just like his son. Sherlock felt his heart squeeze a little.

“Well, if you think so. Maybe when all this is over, I could come to you for some advice?” he replied.

“What am I, chopped liver?” asked Seb, and earned himself a, “Don’t be so vulgar. What will Sherlock think?” from his mother. “And do you have any hobbies, Sherlock?” was her next thrust.

Again Sherlock saw a montage of the things he spent his time on. How to phrase this for his parry?

“Sherlock’s currently working out the whys and wherefores of his doctoral study, Ma. He already has an MSc, a real one, for contributing to the sum of human knowledge, not just a ‘stay alive and out for jail for twenty-one terms after you graduate and you get an MA’, like I have.”

“Oh, nice gown.” Sherlock belatedly realised Seb had the longer-sleeved version, with the lining.

“Thank you. Ma, you’ll be able to say, ‘my son-in-law the doctor.’ Not like Blythe Danner. What’s she come out with, ‘my son-in-law the flash-in-the-pan musician who ripped off Radiohead anyway’?”

“Oh. I see. What kind of doctorate?”

Resisting the urge to reply, “the good kind,” Sherlock said, “I’m a chemist. It’s in bio-organic chemistry with a slant towards accelerated catalyst design. Designer molecules, in fact. Everything else is too easy. This is going to be a mix of computational chemistry and synthesis and NMR spectroscopy.” He stopped, realising that just as before when describing his plans to study to Alli as part of his cover made him understand he was serious, this was firming up all the thoughts and information he’d amassed on the subject. Huh. He continued quickly, in case he forgot.

“It’s designing and testing small organic catalyst molecules able to accelerate reactions which you can’t usually achieve. It will have a useful application for forensic work, eventually. Save time and money in the criminal process. Asymmetric synthesis is the future, and it will lead to new models of reactivity, I shouldn’t wonder.” Seb probably wondered why he was smiling.

“You should patent that yourself. Then lease the application. To Scotland Yard, for instance.” Oliver, of course.

“I am definitely making an appointment to see you,” replied Sherlock, a little faint.

“I say again, what am I,” Seb butted in.

“Handsome in a dinner jacket. _Gorgeous_ , actually.” Sherlock couldn’t believe he hadn’t mentioned how good Seb looked in formal wear. He wasn’t really shown to advantage down here in this appalling light, amongst the grime and monochrome, but even so…

“Oh. Gosh. Thanks. You too.”

“I’m not wearing one. I forgot to change.”

“I have a vivid imagination.” Seb gave him one of his trademark up-and-down looks. “Extremely vivid.” This time the cough from either Rose or Oliver was slightly louder. “You know, Pa, it was Sherlock’s work that gave me the idea to persuade the university IP patents’ company to go public. My God, the untapped potential of those spin-off products. Sir Alan went completely nuts when I flew it. Chairman,” he said to Sherlock.

“Okay. You’re going to call me antediluvian, some entrenched New Englander,” said Rose, although Sherlock was pretty sure he wasn’t. “But I’m just going to ask this last thing. Go ahead and laugh at me. But do we know Sherlock’s parents?”

“We’ve met them here, for one thing!” Oliver remarked, surprising Sherlock. “Oh, father’s an old stickler. Like father, like grandpa, eh! You left a book of your father’s at the cottage when you were down that time, you know. Is William your first or second name?”

“Second,” said Sherlock, extremely surprised by now. The bluff bonhomie hid an extremely sharp mind and fantastic memory. Hm. Like father, like son. More than a physical resemblance. So this was a glimpse into his future? Not...that bad.


	22. Chapter Twenty-two

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

 “Oh-ho! He won’t like this.” Oliver sounded quite tickled at the thought as he wagged a finger at his son and his son’s fiancé.

“Oh, I guess that’s someone else we won’t be good enough for. I need a cigarette,” snapped Rose.

“You’ve just had one,” Seb said.

“And?” Her voice was all American now. She smiled at Sherlock as he sprang forward to light her second cigarette for her.

“I think,” said Oliver, into the pause, “You’d better call me Pa, Sherlock.”

“Thank you, erm, Pa,” said Sherlock.

The pause lengthened as they looked towards Rose. “I’m still thinking,” she snapped. “Okay. That wasn’t the last question. But I just simply have to ask. Hate me if you like. I need to know your thoughts on having a family.” Her blue gaze was suddenly less sharp. Nervous, even, and she directed it at Sherlock.

“Well, we’ve discussed it, obviously,” he began.

“You have?” He saw her hands grip her bag tighter.

“Of course. And we’re both in agreement.” He looked at Seb.

“About?” Rose could hardly speak.

“Well, we both feel sooner rather than later. In fact, Seb’s actual words were…” He had no idea where he was going with this, but he trusted Seb.

“As many as possible, as soon as possible,” Seb finished.

“You’ve definitely been practicing,” Sherlock murmured. To Rose he said, “And here we’ll be coming to you for advice, I suspect. I mean, what do we know about retainers, for instance!”

“I can explain about the state of his canines,” said Rose, tears in her eyes. “Well, I can’t, in point of fact. I mean I tried, but he –”

“And I’m going to ask you to help us when we tell my parents. As you pointed out, they’re not as modern and understanding as you. We’d like you with us.”

Over the hard, tight tug Rose grappled him and Seb into, Oliver asked, “Children? Straight away? Really?”

“Oh yes,” Sherlock gasped. “In fact, Seb’s already looking into it.” Probably. He looked up so many things, Sherlock would bet... Yes; there was the nervous pushing back of the fringe.

There was a thick lull, and as often happened, it took silence to make them aware of the noise which had stopped.

“We missed service,” said Seb.

“Maybe we should –” Sherlock didn’t finish his thoughts. They all tensed as footfalls were heard on the steps outside, and a figure entered. A thin, elderly man, earnest, worried. Professor Price, his wife at his side.

“I’ve just been given this!” He waved a letter.

“Considerate of the prince, under the circs, to wait until after service,” commented Seb.

“And there was one for you, Sebastian! And that Frenchman told me you were all down here, I should… He’s resigned! Just upped and gone! And the ceremony! Whatever shall we do?”

“It’s all in hand,” Seb replied. “It’s you now. You and Mrs Price.”

“You’ll do fine.” Sherlock wanting to get out, strove for reassurance.

“I don’t understand it.” The new principal was upset, almost in tears, but looking less likely to have a panic attack.

“Well, I’m not heartbroken,” chipped in his wife. Frances, Sherlock recalled. Usually absent from Dr Clare’s dinners. “I never really liked him or working as his unpaid assistant. And I always felt ill if I ate or drank anything at the lodgings. Or even in Hall if he was sitting with me.”

“Hmm. Someone else with less neurotypical brain chemistry,” whispered Seb.

“The prince has gone!” Chris rushed into their midst, still stumbling from his descent, or trip down the unsafe stairs to the crypt. “And the bastard’s nicked my motorbike to leave on!”

“You have a, well, _had_ a motorbike?” Sherlock stared at the redhead.

“Yeah. My celebrate being the youngest named chair and sublimate sexual tension and manifest midlife crisis present to myself. Was.” Chris was gloomy.

“Bugger,” threw in Seb.

“Ah, Sebastian. Someone said you were down here?” This last was a tall, vigorous-looking late-middle-aged man, brisk, confident.

“Sir Alan?” Seb looked a little shaken. Interesting. His boss, the chairman, exclaimed in delight over Oliver and Rose.

“This idea of yours. A1. Want to get cracking on it. Thought I’d pop down to Oxford, look into it in person. I need a day or two of peace and quiet. Thought I could talk to you about your future too.” He threw an arm around Seb’s shoulders.

Even more interesting. Seb had plans to be deputy chairman. Looked like they were advancing.

“It’s getting crowded down here,” Seb said.

“And it’s awful,” replied Sir Alan, looking around at the dirt and grime.

“Let’s go up.” Seb steered him off, and Sherlock caught words like _honeymoon_ and _extended break_ and _special role_ and was that _paternity leave_? Seb was driving a hard bargain.

“Sorry about your bike,” he said to Chris.

“Oh, it’s okay. Frik said I looked like a gomgat on it, anyway.”

“What’s a –”

“No idea. Didn’t like to ask.”

“Pity I missed Kirsty,” Sherlock said, finishing explaining the situation to Chris as they blew out all the candles.

“You’ll be back once in a while. Plenty more chances to hear her singing then,” replied Chris, accepting a hand up the final step. “God, I’m nervous. Not looking forward to this. I’ve been doing all the breathing and affirmations and positive thinking, but speeches? Not really me. Numbers, yeah. Words?”

A beep signalled a text, and Sherlock read _Change of plans. Bring Chris Old Quad ASAP. SW. XXX_ And talking of singing, or music, that was the sound of a PA system being tested. “Come on. Seb’s got a plan. Run.” Chris was quick on his feet. Probably the training regime, but Sherlock struggled to keep up as they pelted through the arch, grabbing at the vines in their faces, and stopped short at the sight on the grass of the quad.

Sherlock took one look at the huge amplifiers and the piano and other instruments on the newly set up platform and signalled no to Seb. He wasn’t playing his violin. No way. Not even if Seb was playing piano for the first time since – But Seb shook his head, across the crowd. And…it was a full crowd. A select group had been invited to the ceremony, but here on the grass were all the colleges’ tutorial fellows, professorial fellows, junior research fellows and lecturers. More staff, probably the bursar, the admin ladies, the nurse, chaplain, and even a few gardeners. And all the students, not just the princelings. And ex-fellow students of Chris…

“There’s Rissa!” Chris exclaimed, flattening, in vain, his forelock.

“And Chessy,” Sherlock pointed out, having a go as well for him. No use.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

He kept a sharp eye out for Mycroft, just in case. Seemed that sort of day. Or maybe John would… And he also monitored who was hobnobbing with Oliver, that was, Pa, and Mrs Wilkes. He couldn’t really see himself calling her Ma, and thought Seb did just to annoy her. No; it seemed okay, no tall, irascible middle-aged men or slightly less tall, slightly less middle-aged but equally martinet women were joining them. Just the head of the Mathematical Institute and the head of the MPLS division flanking the Wilkes family. A family that were beckoning him forward onto the wooden planks of the podium. He stayed where he was, squashing the grass in a way that would have pissed off the prince.

“He means you, man.” Frik’s voice was just behind him, and he gave Sherlock a shove forwards. Sherlock spared time to stare narrow-eyed at the bodyguard. He didn’t look as if he’d just sneaked off and killed someone, but… He was glad to be out of the crowd. It was turning, swaying and humming with rumour and speculation.

“Good evening.” Oh, he’d reached the stage, and been absorbed into the small group. Professor Price smiled at him. “I’m Sebastian Wilkes. Thank you all for coming,” Sebastian continued. “We all know why we’re here, to inaugurate the college’s new named professorial chair in Applied Mathematics.” He pointed at Chris and grinned. “And if I asked the new holder what’s so great about maths, he wouldn’t say anything about himself, or his work, or the prizes he’s won, or the stuff he’s published.”

Sherlock hadn’t realised Chris had. Of course, he must have.

“No; he’d say the Mathematical Institute, as the maths department is known here, is what’s great, mainly as it houses both pure maths and applied maths. It makes things more interesting for all, and there’s none of that division, in the division. Sorry. But I’m not going to talk about all the different fields of research. Any of these experts here from the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division could do it much better. I’m not even going to tell you about the other named chairs, all excellent, and how lucky the newest one is to be joining them. They all know that.”

“What’s happened to the prince?” yelled a brave soul. Seb didn’t falter, just looked into the crowd.

“He’s resigned. The vice-principal, Professor Price, is now in charge. It’s the beginning of a new era. Just as it is for Dr Parrington Andrews, who we’re here to congratulate. Again, no speech necessary. You all know him.”

A cheer went up. Alli blew a kiss at Chris. Chris refused to come up to the podium.

“And no formal Hall necessary. Chris isn’t into that. So we’re having a free buffet, with pizza. He likes pizza.”

Frik could be seen shaking his head against the clapping, whistling, whooping crowd.

“I’d like to add something.” Rose Wilkes grabbed the mic. “And it’s that although our son, Sebastian, feels we disapprove of him, that’s not so.”

“We have, on occasion,” Oliver corrected, taking the mic.

“Not exactly, Oliver.”

Seb sighed and moved back a little, letting his parents argue the point.

“Not of him. We’ve not been happy with some of his choices, but we’ve never been disappointed in him. I don’t know why he feels that.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Some of the things he’s done…” Oliver trailed off.

“Well, you know what children are like,” finished Rose, to cheers and applause. “But we are proud of him.”

“Oh yes.” Oliver nodded. Sherlock noticed the bank’s chairman nodding too.

“Thanks, Pa, Ma.” Seb had wrestled the mic back. “Well, can’t better that. I know Chris will do his best and make us all proud. I also know he has a favourite group. Has for years. It was the first thing I knew about him. Oh yes. They’re from this city, actually. And they’ve kindly agreed to come here and help us celebrate the awarding of the university’s newest professorial chair to the youngest-ever holder of one: Radiohead!”

There was a pause after this buildup, which Sherlock attributed to the audience not believing the announcement, but then five men, all casually dressed, all different heights, most of them carrying instruments, strolled over from the direction of the porters’ lodge, and the college went crazy. Seb set down the mic and ushered everyone off stage, grinning from ear to ear. Chris’s, “No! No! No!” could be heard above the sound of the men tuning up.

“Yes!” cried Seb, his voice thin and tinny against the lead singer’s, “Hello, and congratulations to the university’s newest chair holder, Chris Paranoid Android!”

just before he launched into the song of the same name. At the alienated drone of the chords and melody, the place went completely wild.

“Chris is very pale for once,” remarked Sherlock, leaning to call into Seb’s ear. It made Seb shudder and press against him. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”

Frik must have been of the same opinion: he was applying some sort of manoeuvre on Chris from behind. Chris ignored this, just as he was oblivious to Mrs Wilkes’s smelling salts being waved under his nose. He didn’t even seem to notice Kirsty practicing the hold, using him to do so, just in case.

“What’s going to happen, about the proposed changes to the Council, the funding?” asked Frik, snapping photos, obviously in reporter mode now the threat to his mark was eradicated.

“Oh, what always happens: a truckload lot of debate, an entire forest of papers published on all parties’ thoughts, then business as usual. This is Oxford!” replied Seb.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

“Sebastian, it’s really them!” Tears were in Chris’s eyes.

“Of course! Nothing but the best for you, Dr PA.” To Sherlock he added: “You thought it was a tribute band? Mate, as if.”

Sherlock eyed him.

“Oh, all right. I did audition a few. Kid, Eh, they’re Canadian, and Karma Police! – actually the Metropolitan Police Radiohead appreciation society – being among them. Not a patch on the real thing. He nodded happily along to, “The yuppies networking,” line.

“They don’t do corporate gigs.” Chris was using someone’s bowtie now to blot his eyes.

“Buddy, this isn’t corporate.” Seb shouted above all the crowd singing along. “It’s…cultural.”

“Educational,” added Sherlock, wrapping an arm around Seb under his gown and into his pocket. “Just wondering what you had to promise to get them. And this setlist. They never do their old stuff.”

“You…don’t want to know,” said Seb. “Although, I suppose when you will, when we… Well. Sufficient unto the day, and all that.” He pressed closer, rubbing against Sherlock.

 _“'Staircase_ _!_ ”' screamed Chris happily as the jangling chords sawed out. The entire audience yelled the line, “the other place,” and even the serious lead singer laughed.

“Sir Alan’s enjoying it.” Sherlock indicated the man shuffling along to the insistent music. “And your parents. Can’t see Alli or Lestrade though. Strange. Although Alli’s mother and Sir Alan seem to be…hitting it off.”

“Umm. Marigold.”

“Marigold? That’s her name?”

“No; that’s what she did. Maybe lighting will strike twice?”

“Keep an eye on Chris. He looks likely to faint,” Frik instructed Kirsty. It did seem possible, especially as during 'Karma Police' Thom Yorke held the mic out to the crowd to sing the line, “He talks in maths,” and everyone stared at Chris and clapped him.

“Still upright, but someone will have to do something about his breeks,” cried Kirsty, pointing to the wet stain at the front.

“We’ve all been there,” said Seb in sympathy. He hugged Sherlock tighter. “Lord, Belle. This was us. We did this!” He nodded around at the crowd, the quad, the college. ‘“This is what you get…”’

‘“When you mess with us,”’ Sherlock sang along too.

“I’m so happy I could go punting,” announced Seb, and Sherlock laughed until his eyes were as wet as Chris’s.

“Oh, 'Give Up the Ghost'!” cried Chris. “Love this one!”

“Apt,” commented Sherlock.

“This too,” said Seb at the next song, 'Everything in its Right Place.' “Like us, now. Doing it again. Properly. Right. This time round.”

“Is that why you’ve put me through all this again? I hated most of it first time around! I found all this” – he gestured – “really difficult and I couldn’t cope,” said Sherlock.

“God, me too! I only arsed about so much as the work was really difficult and I couldn’t cope!” confessed Seb. Sherlock clung to him for support. He was weak with laughter, needing to be close to Seb in the face of the rediscovery of just how similar they both were.

“As I said before, we’re absolute tossers.” Seb’s smile was crooked.

“Complete wankers.” Sherlock held him hard in a hug. “Getting looks,” he murmured, catching Oliver’s eye.

“He can nag by mind waves,” said Seb. “But he’s right. No more dilly-dallying. None of this you staying at my house, and all your stuff is at yours. You fly home and pack all your stuff, and I’ll be round with a removal truck and collect you. You can move in properly. And we’ll sign the promissory agreement with Mrs H tonight for the property. I’d come with you, but Pa wants to go through stuff with me, he said.”

“You grew up really bossy,” remarked Sherlock, his eyes gleaming. “Well, if I must. I suppose it’s about time.” He caught Seb’s exhale and the belated shove of his fingers through his fringe. _Oh, Seb had been nervous to say that! Fancy._ Then, “Stuff?”

“Finances, I think. His eyes lit up at the family part, if you noticed.”

Sherlock had. He thought trusts, those blessed tax-relief vehicles, were on the horizon. “Wait. _Fly?_ Are you speaking –”

“Helicopter rich, remember? Well, Sir Alan’s, but he won’t be needing it tonight.” His tongue poked a lump in the side of his cheek.

“Sebastian Wilkes. You are impossible,” said Sherlock. “Oh, listen. This is for you: ‘No alarms and no surprises, please.”’

“ _Belle._ As if.” There was relative quiet for a minute, with the quad looking so beautiful as the sun set. Everyone paused, surrendering to nature’s superiority. Seb pulled Sherlock away a little, to sit down on the edge of the crowd.

‘“So, we'll go no more a-roving,  
So late into the night,  
Though the heart be still as loving,  
And the moon be still as bright.”  
Sherlock stared in amazement at Seb, quoting like this.

“ _Lord._ Byron’s catching. It’s all about growing up.” He continued.

“‘For the sword outwears its sheath,  
And the soul wears out the breast,  
And the heart must pause to breathe,  
And love itself have rest.  
Though the night was made for loving,  
And the day returns too soon,  
Yet we'll go no more a-roving  
By the light of the moon.”’

“That’s…pathetic.” Sherlock poked him in the stomach. ‘The sword outwears the sheath’? As if! And Belle and Sebastian said it better: ‘You know my wandering days are over…”’

And of course, Seb finished the line: ‘“Does that mean that I'm getting boring?”’

“Never,” affirmed and promised Sherlock, pushing Seb flat to roll on top of him for a proper kiss.

Seb broke off. “Talking of literature…” He tugged a small device free of his gown. “Look.”

“I am, but…” You never knew with this perfectly maddening…

“Kirsty’s e-books! Can’t wait to read them with you!”

“ _Laird of the Dance_?”

“And the sequel: _Highland Sting_! Mate, it’s got _thistle play_!”

“What” – Sherlock was snorting with laughter – “the hell is that?”

“No idea. Just know I want it.” Seb gave a deep nod and tucked the small USB flash drive away safely. “You’ll like it too.” The look in his eye promised much. He went to pull Sherlock to him.

“Oh!” Sherlock sat up again. “Sod Radiohead; for our celebration, we should get –”

“Shhh! Don’t ruin the surprise.” And Seb yanked him down again, to finish what they’d started, all those thousand years ago.


	25. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Seb was taking forever. Sherlock had just about finished packing most of his clothes and stuff from his room and really most of his books and equipment from the living room he was quickly tidying when the bell rang. He buzzed what was presumably Seb in. Seb took ages to get up the stairs and a while to knock on the door.

“It’s open. Come in.” Sherlock stared at Seb. He looked…something and trying to cover it up. “Everything okay? You took your time. Did you have to drop someone off? Or did your parents backtrack –”

“No, Nothing like that. And I came straight here. Eventually. Come here. Missed you, Belle.”

“It’s only been a few hours.” But he let Seb hold him close and snog the face off him.

“Mate.” Seb pulled back, then away, then paced.

“What.”

“Don’t get mad.”

“Have I told you how much I hate it when you open with that?” Sherlock regarded Seb coolly. “If anything’s the matter, just say it.”

“Okay. Will do. Lord. Someone I want you to meet.”

Sherlock stared in surprise as Seb slipped out to the hallway, returning a second later with some sort of flat, rigid black-and-silver cocoon or sleeping bag he carried lengthways by its big handle. It was very small. Baby-sized, in fact. “You brought me a tiny pod?” was all he could think of to say.

“More like a tiny pod person.” Seb wriggled a bundle from the shell and let the shell drop onto a chair, pushing its handle flat against it. He cradled the bundle to him and pulled away the blanket from…the baby’s head. He turned so Sherlock could see the child, observe tiny hands clutching an old stuffed toy, dark hair, a wide pink mouth, and long eyelashes guarding sleeping eyes. Because the eyes were closed Sherlock couldn’t see the colour, but he would bet they were blue. He circled to the front to look at Seb’s apprehensive expression.

“To meet? Your…”

“Sister. Yes.”

“Well, give my congrats to your mother. She got her figure back amazingly quickly. And at her age too.”

“Half-sister. Beatrice.”

The name had sounded like Beeahtreeche, and it took Sherlock a second to realise it was the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice. “Oh.” He found he’d reached out and taken the little girl, who was not even three months old, he judged. He held her to his chest, secured fast by both arms as Seb was looking anxious and his hands had tightened around her as Sherlock lifted her.

“Umm. Pa has always had mistresses. Buxom, scented, silk-scarf-and-huge-sunglasses-wearing old money southern Europeans, each and every one. Even when the trend was for weird-eyed bottle-blonde Russians or sing-song-accented bolt-on-chested Lithuanians. In that he’s a classicist, I suppose. Likes someone he can talk about business in Romance languages and eat carb-rich food with.”

“And you’ve always known?”

“Oh, I’ve grown up with a succession of Aunty Lias and Mimis and Pilars.” Seb shrugged.

“Bet you mother hasn’t known.”

“Quite. And any kind of sibling is a first. Pa was shocked too, when he just found out.”

Sherlock shifted the tiny bundle, feeling her settle her weight trustingly into him. He took a sniff of her soft hair, inhaling the scent of flowery soap and talcum powder and milk and fresh linen. Seb kissed Sherlock, then kissed the top of the baby's dark curly head, his eyes still guarded.

“So we’re…babysitting Beatrice.” It wasn’t a question. Sherlock knew –

“Not…exactly. Don’t get – Oh God.”

“Don’t blaspheme. Tender ears present.”

“Aunty Chiara has very sadly passed away, leaving her child to Pa. So I told Pa we’d very kindly look after Bea, keep her safe and keep our mouths shut until he gets the balls to tell Ma. Or gets her so drunk she falls into a coma. Which would amount to the same. If he just blurted it out, she’d kill him, Belle! She’d shoot him and then get people to swear the pistol went off when he was cleaning it. Seriously. You know she carries a gun. Where do you think I got mine from? It’s one of her old and unfashionable ones. Won’t go with any of this season’s bags or shoes. I…”

“So that’s how we, or rather you, got so much of his blessing. Blackmail.”

Seb shrugged, looking rueful. “I’m a bit of a classicist too.”

“What else? Oh come on. There’s always more with you.”

“Well, Pa is distraught at her death. Can’t handle it. It was very sudden, out of the blue…and now, with Bea, it means her interests in the family business, which were administered by…Okay.” Sherlock was making ‘move it along’ gestures, as best as he could with his hands full of a tiny baby he wasn’t used to. “He can’t deal with it and thinks she was, well, done away with. Murdered. And it’s actually possible. I’ve been digging a bit just now. So I said we’d look into it, to get him closure.” This was in one breath, his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s, his face apprehensive.

“You mean…” Sherlock had no idea what this beyond-infuriating man meant.

“We’re sort of legal foster parents to a two-month-old for the foreseeable and investigating possible business malpractice and misappropriation and possible murder.” This came out in an even bigger rush.

“Sebastian bloody Wilkes.” Sherlock closed his eyes and shook his head. He opened his eyes and gazed at his fiancé over the tiny creature’s tufts of curls. “A new baby and a new case? What is this, you got your own wedding present along with mine? And all I could think to get us was matching phones on a duo plan. I even got some leaflets to study. Look.”

He started to laugh, mostly at the look on Seb’s face, and the noise and his shaking woke the tiny Beatrice. She raised her head and looked at them both from big, startlingly dark blue eyes, her expression quizzical, more so as she dropped the fluffy orange toy she carried and accepted Raj, Sherlock’s ancient toy tiger he’d dug out and shoved in his bag to take with him and which he now handed down to her. It was as if he’d known. Fate. He nuzzled her, making her giggle and burrow into him as his fringe tickled her.

“ _Ciao,_ ” cooed Seb, stroking her soft cheek.

“ _Bella,_ ” added Sherlock, kissing her curly head.

“Belle,” corrected Seb, kissing him.

“And Sebastian,” added Sherlock, kissing him back.

And their tiny baby laughed, showing them her pink-ridged mouth and paler pink gums. Because, really, that said it all.

 

Stay tuned for _Write About Love_!


End file.
